A HISTORY OF BARNOLDSWICK
By Rev. J H Warner BA. Priced at 1/6 (seven and a half new pence). Published by the Craven Herald. 1934.
[This text has sunk into obscurity and it needs to be more accessible as it contains much original research based on original documents. Well worth a read….]

A Foreword.

THE Vicar of Barnoldswick, in writing the following account of the history of his parish, has obeyed the well-known precept, attributed to more than one diocesan bishop and repeated by many, that a parochial incumbent should also endeavour to become the parochial historian. Mr. Warner, with a genuine enthusiasm for his subject, has not been content to repeat what others have said before him, and perhaps to give their statements a more popular complexion; but he has gone for the sources of his work to original documents, from which he has extracted much that will be at once new and interesting to his readers. Even the best and most careful local historians sometimes succeed in writing very dull books : their task of bringing together miscellaneous evidence is difficult, and to give liveliness and a connected form to the result is even harder. In the present instance, these obstacles seem to have been less formidable than usual. Mr. Warner has "the shaping spirit of imagination" which enables him to reconstruct past history with fidelity to truth, and the power of exposition which readily harmonises diversity of material into a constructive and intelligible narrative. Inhabitants of Barnoldswick will recognise with appreciation his affection for the town and its neighbourhood and will welcome his attempt to put the fruits of his researches into readable shape for their instruction and profit.

A. HAMILTON THOMPSON.

Preface.

This little book cannot claim to be a history of Barnoldswick. There are too many gaps in the narrative to permit such a claim to be sustained, intervals even of centuries during which things happened, eventful enough, no doubt, perhaps more so than many of the events here chronicled, but of which no record is to be found. And even of the material available some has had to be discarded. Many parish histories are dull reading. I have tried as well as I could to avoid dullness and make the pages of the past interesting to my readers ; and to this end I have omitted records of leases in the Manor Court, various old wills and other documents useful, to the historian but tedious to the general reader. At times a horrid misgiving assailed me, and I seem to see myself sitting prone on the ground, between the two stools of popular interest and historical value! If so, I hope I may be at least considered worthy of a little credit for having essayed a difficult task. The book suffers also from another fault, which my readers will no doubt soon discover : a certain discontinuity in style and matter due to its being written at such intervals as I could spare from the duties of my office as Vicar of the town whose history I have been trying to trace. If, however, the reading of it gives any pleasure to my parishioners, and perchance to a few non-parishioners, I shall be gratified. The writing of it has been a very pleasant task to me.

I gratefully acknowledge much kind help received from many friends; Prof. Hamilton Thompson, Colonel Parker, Dr. Vacher Burch, Mr. Alban Atkinson, Prof. Edmondson, of New York, and others. And I would like to record my appreciation of the assistance given to me by the Publishers.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

To know Barnoldswick at its best one has to see it in the early days of June, when the hawthorn hedges are in full blossom, -white as snow," and the sunshine falls lovingly and lingeringly on the green springing grass and soft young heather of the hill-sides. Then "Weets," for so we name the hill which rises steeply behind our town, shows all its bewitching enchantments to those who look for them. Probably the name comes from the Old English "withig," which means withies, or willows ; or perhaps, it may be derived from the Norse "vithr," meaning "wide," and indicating the broad expanse of the hill, which in winter seems cold and bare but in early summer is lovely. The little cotton town with its somewhat drab streets and grimy mills-"sheds" we call them in this part of the world-stands in the midst of a fair scene. Behind it, Weets aforesaid slopes upward to a height of 1,300 feet, and over the shoulder of Weets a glimpse is caught of the still higher outline of Pendle, once famous for its witches, reminding us that we are on the edge of Yorkshire and very near to the county of Lancashire, which is at once the sister and rival of the shire of broad acres. In Barnoldswick, indeed, Lancashire flaunts her cotton skirts in the face of her fair sister long content with homely wool ; and if we are good judges of the dialects of the two shires we can detect the vowel sounds which betray the speech of the migrants from over the border, now no longer aliens in our midst. It is not always advisable to discuss cricket when the rival Roses are playing one another at Old Trafford, or Headingley, for Lancashire blood is then apt to announce its presence even in those who might be accounted “old inhabitants" here. Perhaps another trace of the influence of Lancashire upon this little corner of Yorkshire is to be found in the penchant which inhabitants of our town display for taking their annual holiday at Blackpool. To return to our story, however, and to turn our backs for the moment on Lancashire, we can look from the slopes of Weets, or even from the seats in Letcliffe Park, over one of the fairest and most extensive views in all England. To the left rise Harrop Moor and Bowland Forest, Croasdale Fell (1,483 feet high), Bowland Knotts and Whelpstone Crag, Ingleborough with its table top, Simon's Fell and Whernside, highest of the Yorkshire hills (2,414 feet). Then come the Settle crags, Malham Rye Loaf, with a peep of Pen-y-Gent behind, Fountains Fell (also over 2,000 feet high) and Great Whernside. Following on to the right we can see Rylstone Fell and Flasby Fell, Sharpah, Crookrise, Embsay Crag, and Simon's Seat above Bolton Abbey. The very names are redolent of romance, mingled with history; but we must not stay to dwell on these things. Taking our eyes

off the swelling contours of the hills, we look next on the valleys below, where the Ribble, the Wharfe, and the Aire, with many lesser streams, roll through rich pasture lands on their several ways to the sea. These rivers themselves are not indeed visible, but the added beauty which water gives to a landscape is supplied by the windings of he Leeds and Liverpool Canal, in these parts more like a river than a crowded commercial waterway. The pastures and meadows of Craven are famous, and Craven heifer beef takes its place with turtle soup at Aldermanic banquets. The tillage, which in Whitaker's (1), day had become "universally exploded," has never recovered from that catastrophic occurrence, and to this day there is scarcely an acre of corn land in the whole of Barnoldswick parish, and very few acres in all Craven. Pasture and meadow hold undisputed sway in the lowlands ; but up on the hills the heather and the bracken make green and purple cover for curlews and for grouse, and the sweet grass between the best of browsing for sheep.

From Letcliffe Park the prospect is almost entirely sylvan and rural. But you have only to climb up over Tubber Hill and you will be able to look right away over the moorland to the rolling smoke and black chimney stacks of Cottonland. Colne and Nelson, Burnley and Accrington, rank offences to the aesthetic and poetic, "dark Satanic mills" to those who do not find their daily bread within them, but with a strange, weird beauty of their own when the red sun flashes on them, and with their irresistible appeal of "whoam" to those who have toiled in them for a life-time. At night, when the lights are all aglow over miles of country-side, climbing up hills, dipping down into valleys, breaking out here and there into great patch-work patterns where some huge mill throws out its light from hundreds of windows, softened by distance, splashed with spaces of green, or reflected in silvery waving water, the scene is as of fairyland. Where else in England is so great a contrast to be found? Up here on the moorland with the curlews calling overhead or the startled grouse whirring up at your feet, you seem alone in the world. Yet in a short half-hour's walk you may be listening to the deafening din of the looms, or the clatter of the clogs on the feet of thousands of busy toilers. There is variety here, surely ; the variety which in living is the spice of life, and in nature is the soul of beauty.

Such then is the setting in which stands this little town of Barnoldswick, whose history we are essaying to trace. Unkind critics may call the town itself ugly. It was built in too great a hurry to allow of much effort after architectural splendour, and its buildings are useful rather than fine, its homes comfortable rather than

1 "History of Craven," 2nd edit., p 2. (Where Whitaker is referred to throughout this book the references are to the 2nd edit.].

picturesque. It escapes the slums which more pretentious places seek to hide. It might have had fine buildings, for in its neighbourhood are the Tubber Hill and Salterforth quarries, producing some of the finest stone in England. If, however, the buildings of Barnoldswick are not its chief glory, and cannot be pointed out with much pride to our visitors, we can ask them with conviction whether they know many towns with a fairer environment, many scenes more beautiful than that at which we have been gazing from the town park, where stands the town's Memorial to those who died in 1914 to 1918 for the sake of England's loveliness and her homes.

CHAPTER II.

Early Days.

WHERE and whence did Barnoldswick get its name? You must pronounce it with the accent on the second syllable, Barnoldswick, not Barnoldswick; or if you have been initiated into one of its mysteries you will call it "Barlick." Barbarous name in any case you may say, or at least think if you are too discreet to put your thoughts into speech ; and indeed it does not roll easily nor smoothly off the tongue. Yet there is an element of romance, as well as a puzzle in it, too.(1) We have to go back to the old days before William the Conqueror invaded England in order to trace the origin of the name. In William's survey of the country, known as Domesday Book, we find that its name was Bernulfeswic, and that it belonged to a Saxon thane called Gamel, who owned also other possessions in Marton and Thornton and round about even so far as Bradford. Bernulfeswic means the "wick" (Lat. vicus) or town of Bernulf, and Bernulf must have been some predecessor of Earl Gamel, who probably first built here a little simple manor house and attendant cottages or hovels, with a palisade round them, at the foot of Weets. A certain Beornwulf, King of the Mercians, fought at Ellandun against Egbert, King of the West Saxons, in the year 823 A.D., and Egbert got the victory, so the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us ; but it would be hazardous to identify this Beornwulf as the founder of Barnoldswick.(2) Beornwulf was a not uncommon Saxon name, perhaps reminiscent of encounters with the bears and wolves that roamed the forests of old England.

We would like to try to picture to ourselves this Saxon hunter and warrior; and still more to picture the "wick" which he built here, and the country in which it stood. The hills far and near would have looked much the same as they look now; the same brooks came tumbling down the near hill-sides, and farther away Ribble, Aire and Wharfe flowed in the same courses in which they flow to-day. Many marshes and bogs lay in the lowlands, as well as much uncleared woodland, chiefly scrub and small trees, with an occasional great old oak or towering ash. The hills would mostly have been gaunt and bare as they still are, broken, nevertheless, by patches of primeval forest where deer harboured with boars, and even a wolf or two. In clearings here and there stood the townships, each with its palisade or " tun," each with its little cluster of poor mud and wattle hovels, windowless and chimneyless, where

1 The puzzle, namely, how its ancient name of Bernulfswick (see p. 1) ever got transformed into Barnoldswick. Smith, in his book, "Place Names of the North Riding," accounts for it as due to the weakening of the stress on "ulf" and compares Thoraldsthorp, originally Thurulfesthorp, and Gonalston, originally Gunulfston.

2 Yet it is not quite impossible, for Clitheroe and Skipton were both in the demesnes of the Earls of Mercia in the time of William I.

lived the ceorls or freemen ; each with its rather bigger and more pretentious abode of the earl or lord of the manor. The Roman historian Tacitus gives us a glimpse of the fashion in which they lived, these forefathers of our England, in the days before they came hither from the marshes and sand-flats that border the Baltic and the Elbe. "They live apart," he says, each by himself as wood-side, plain, or fresh spring attracts him." Yet also they lived in clans together, and each settlement had its common pasturage and its plough-land, bordered by the "march" of "waste" or fen-land which separated one township from another, and which no man might till or take for his own, for it was sacred to the fairies and will-o'-the-wisp. Simple and free were the lives they lived, unembarrassed by the complications of modern civilisation ; yet before we wish ourselves back in those " good old days" we might stay to count the sorrows and travail of the stark combats with wild beasts and wild neighbours, and the fears which filled men's souls in the presence of gods who were fiercer and more cruel than any human beings. We might reckon in also the fight with hunger and disease in the days when there were no hospitals, no "Lloyd George" money, and no unemployment "dole." Wars and forays were the joys of men's lives, and the tears of women were of small account when the earl rode out to battle, or to lead his fierce followers far across the sea.

For the great Empire of Rome was bowing its proud head before the blast which swept from the steppes of Asia. Hordes of Huns and Goths were swooping down on its decadent civilisation, and Angles and Saxons found the opportunity to lay the first rough foundation stones, cemented in blood, of an Empire which was to be greater and more far-flung than that of Rome and Constantinople. How amazed those rude clansmen who came hither with Beornwulf would have been had any man given them the vision of the days to be, when the "wick" they were building should be linked by threads of cotton, and the invisible bonds of commerce, with lands which the Romans, whom they were dispossessing, never knew.

Did the Romans themselves ever visit Barnoldswick? The vestiges of a Roman-or it may have been a British-road are to be found on the edge of the town still. For Brogden Lane was part of a Roman road. That road ran from Ribchester to Tadcaster, through Skipton and Ilkley. From Skipton to Elslack (1) it probably followed very nearly the same course which the railway now pursues. The remains of Roman fortifications have been found near Elslack Station, and remind us of the frequent skirmishes which Roman soldiers fought with British tribesmen ; unless, perchance, those entrenchments were thrown up to repel some foray of Picts and Scots in the days when Hadrian's Wall was not yet built. From Elslack, the road ran to Thornton and thence via Greenlees, Brogden, (2) Coverdale Beck, Howgill, Downham and Chatburn to Clitheroe. Traces of it are still to be found not only in Brogden Lane, which probably runs exactly as it ran, but in the higher grounds where the lane finally loses itself in the fields, and further on again at Pendleton Brook which it forded.(3) It was made of gravel not of stone, which is one reason why it may be supposed to be of British rather than of Roman origin; though, no doubt, the Romans used it and made it a part of the great road system with which they covered the country. Whether Barnoldswick existed when it was made, or when Roman soldiers and chariots journeyed to and fro upon it, we cannot now pronounce with certainty. No Roman remains have been discovered here, but that is not conclusive proof. Some earthworks were found, close to the Roman road, just north of the town, consisting of two small square platforms three feet high and about ninety feet long and broad, with vestiges of a slight ditch, but experts think that they were intended for the protection of sheep from wolves, not as fortifications against man.(4)

But we have digressed from our attempt to paint a picture of the little Saxon "wick" in order to take this fleeting glance at an even remoter past. Let us return for a brief moment to the days when England was nearing another great milestone in its history, and the next act in the drama was being prepared on the plains of Normandy. When Edward the Confessor was king in England, Bernulf’s "wick" had descended, as we have seen, either by inheritance or by some other right, to Earl Gamel. In Domesday Book, the Conqueror's great survey of the lands of his new kingdom, the following is the record given of Bernulfeswick

From which we gather that Earl Gamel, who with his retainers from Barnoldswick and elsewhere had probably fought side by side with Harold in the Battle of Senlac Hill, was for this crime, or even only for the crime of being a Saxon, dispossessed of his lands, which were handed over by the Conqueror to Berenger de Todeni, a nobleman from Normandy. Berenger, it appears, did not hold it long, and it became part of the extensive possessions of Roger of Poitou, alias Roger the Poitevin. This Roger was a man of note and a favourite of the Conqueror's, from whom he received large gifts of lands in Yorkshire and Lancashire. The "castellate" referred to in the Domesday quotation is probably that of Clitheroe. (5)

which may have been founded by this Norman Baron but possibly was older still and of Saxon foundation. Roger of Poitou was also Lord of Halton Manor, and of Lancaster, which went with it ; and may have been the builder of the great castle the ruins of which now look across Morecambe Bay.

How Barnoldswick came to pass from the possession of Roger or of his family to that of De Lacy, or rather of the Earls of Norfolk, as we shall later see that it did, the present writer has not discovered, but further research may throw light on the matter.

We can only picture in imagination the troubles and sorrows of the hapless serfs or peasants, the inhabitants of Bernulfswick, who had to transfer their allegiance from a Saxon to a Norman lord. Doubtless there were many widows and fatherless children in the humble homes of this little village whilst the wars between invaders and invaded swayed to and fro. Whitaker, in his -History of Craven, tells us that he is sure that there was a Church here then, though no mention is made of it in Domesday Book. His reason is that Serlo the Monk, of whom we shall hear anon, tells us that in 1147 the Church in Barnoldswick was already an ancient structure. If there was a church, it would, no doubt, have been a very simple building indeed, of wood or wattle, plastered with mud and roofed with thatch, little grander than the poor huts of the people. But where there was a church there would be a priest, and we may believe that he would not have been molested by the Norman Christians, as his predecessors might have been when the heathen Saxons drove out British Christianity and for a time replaced Christian churches by the temples of Odin and Thor. He could and no doubt would minister the comfort of God to the stricken members of his flock.

This ancient Church of Barnoldswick stood probably at or near the spot where Calf Hall Shed stands now, or else on the site of the present market-place. It was certainly close to the field now known as Monkroyd.

CHAPTER III.

The Coming of the Monks.

In our next view of the panorama of the past of Barnoldswick we begin at the great Abbey of St. Mary, York. It was a Benedictine Monastery, and the Benedictines by the middle of the 12th century had lapsed from their pristine zeal and strictness, and had become luxurious and lax. Some of the inmates of St. Mary's, discontented with this, and unwilling to be spoilt by the overgood living of the Abbey, left its gates and migrated to Fountains, where the Cistercian monks were following a much more severe life of poverty and good works. But after a little stay within its hospitable walls the chance came to them of founding a daughter priory of their own. And it came in this way. Henry de Lacy, or de Lasci, grandson of one of William the Conqueror's barons, Ilbert de Lacy, fell sick and in his sickness vowed a vow that, if he recovered, he would build to the glory of God and the honour of St. Mary the Virgin a monastery to shelter some of the Cistercian monks. Unlike some others who have made vows when ill only to break them with equal facility when well, Henry de Lacy was as good as his word ; and looking over his great estates when he had risen again from his bed of sickness, he chose Barnoldswick to be the site of a new monastery. What impulse or spirit guided his choice we do not know ; but it is at least possible that it may have been due to the fact that another great nobleman, William de Percy, had also about the same time decided to found a monastery at Sallay, or Sawley, which is only a few miles distant from Barnoldswick. It may have been the other way about, of course, for both foundations took place in the same year, 1147; and which of the two was the first decided upon is not shown. The Barnoldswick foundation, however, was actually made on the 18th of May in the year 1147. Once again by the use of a little imagination we can picture to ourselves the scene when the company of twelve monks and ten lay brethren, with their Prior at their head, came to begin life anew in the secluded uplands at the foot of Weets. The fresh green would be waving the signal of spring from the pastures and the woodlands, and the air would be full of the scent of the hawthorn, which blossoms abundantly on these hill-sides. They might well think that the lot had fallen to them in pleasant places, as fair as the Fountains which they had left ; and they would not suspect the presence of the serpent which they afterwards found in their Garden of Eden. One writer speaks of them very glowingly as "those humble and self-denying men who left the luxurious halls of St. Mary at York to find a home and to found a [religious] house amidst the privations of a desert life." That their motives were pure and their heroism and self-sacrifice real there can be no doubt, but there was as we shall see a considerable strain of the "old Adam" even in these devout and good men. Their leader, Alexander, Prior of Fountains and first Abbot of "Bernulfeswick," and subsequently of Kirkstall, was no mean man. Whitaker finds convincing proof of his "skill and taste" in the fact that when he was rearing the magnificent pile of Kirkstall Abbey he "spared the fine woods which surround the house and brought the timbers from a distance.” The Abbey itself is a better proof not only of skill and taste, but of stronger qualities as well. Its ruins stand to-day on the outskirts of Leeds looking scornfully down from their remote antiquity on the encroaching environment of modern villas and ugly factories, and on the once pure and lovely but now contaminated and evil-smelling Aire, which rushes past them as if hurrying to escape their reproachful gaze. Though they cannot compare in size, nor in beauty of situation, with the remains of Fountains Abbey, still they are splendid and bear silent yet eloquent witness to the devotion of Alexander and his monks, who for thirty long laborious years toiled at their uprearing. In this work they were aided by the generosity and support of Henry de Lacy, who built the church of the Abbey at his own expense and gave other large gifts both of lands and money, including the continued possession of the Manor of Barnoldswick. To this he and other patrons during the succeeding centuries added other like gifts of estates and manors until at the Dissolution Kirkstall was one of the wealthiest and greatest monastic institutions in the North of England. During his lifetime Alexander acquired many of these estates for his abbey, and died at last after a thirty-five years abbacy, “an Abbot indeed and not in name only," as the Kirkstall Chronicler declares.

But we are anticipating, and must retrace our steps a little to the band of monks and conversi whom we left surveying the scene of their future abode on that fair day in May in the year of grace 1147. Part at least of the monastery which they were to occupy had been already built for them by their patron, but it would be not much more than a rude wooden shelter, which they would
have to enlarge and complete. Its position in a field still called Monks Royd (or Rood) is known from tradition, confirmed by the discovery of remains of tiles and lead pipes dug up there a century or so ago. Possibly further research might yield some interesting results, but I have not heard of anyone attempting it. As usual in the choice of monastic sites, it was not far from running water, close to Butts Beck where it tumbles picturesquely down its green-edged channel from the side of Weets. To their new home thus
placed, on slight rising ground, the monks (or Henry) gave the name
Mons Sanctae Mariae. The well from which they drew their water is still to be seen and is known as St. Mary's Well to this day but it waters are not used now, either for drinking or for healing.

They did not need to build a church, for they found one ready built, an ancient one even then, so their chronicler, Serlo, informs us, calling it “antiqua nimis et ab olim fundata.” There was a Vicar (or Rector) of Barnoldswick even in those far-off days, and he and his flock were wont to assemble for daily prayer and praise, and no doubt "sacrifices of the Mass" for the living and the dead. Conflicts, therefore, soon arose between the monks and the villagers, each wanting the use of the church at the same time, with the result that much ---bad blood" was engendered on both sides. And at last dissension rose so high that Alexander, who, being a masterful man could ill take any crossing of his will, gave orders, "minus consulte," admits Serlo, that the church should be pulled down., Perhaps, to give him his due, this rash conduct was not wholly due to rage and the "old Adam" in him, but was also partly actuated by the desires to build a larger and nobler church in its stead. But the days were wild and lawless, for at nearly the same time Murdac, Abbot of Fountains, was suffering hard things at the hands of his enemies, who compelled him to flee for his life because of his part in resisting the claims of William Fitz Herbert, Archbishop of York. His church was burnt, and his abbey sacked ; but he finally routed his foes and became Archbishop himself. The contention between the monks and the people of Barnoldswick was referred first to him as Archbishop, and afterwards to the Pope, by whom sentence in favour of the monks was pronounced on the ground that the step taken in demolishing the church was likely to result in the final greater advancement of true religion. I am inclined to take this as meaning that a finer church should be built in place of the demolished one, but historian Whitaker understands it to signify that monastic religion is a nobler type than the mere village stuff, and declares his astonishment and indignation at such "vile casuistry" and “pernicious doctrine.” That Alexander and his nobles did rebuild the church, though on another site, we know as a fact ; and that they did it whilst also building the great Abbey of Kirkstall seems to indicate some stronger compulsion upon them than that of conscience only ; yet, perhaps, this again is to give them less than their due.

But be this as it may, we find the monks engaged in a struggle not only with the stubborn inhabitants, but also with a yet more stubborn climate and soil which would not suffer hard labours at their crops to bring them their due reward. Their neighbours at Sawley were undergoing the same hardships. One of their patrons, Matilda, Countess of Warwick, describes the situation of that Abbey as being in a land "nebulosa et pluviosa" (“full of rains and vapours"), and a still nobler patron, Edward I. himself, in writing to the Pope describes it as lying close to the Irish Sea, astonishingly wooded and mountainous, and visited by wild tempests.(1) The vapours of the Irish Sea sweeping over Pendle descend upon Barnoldswick, also in showers which may be refreshing and cleansing, and good for cotton manufacturing, but are not conducive to good harvests. So we can enter with sympathetic understanding into the feelings of the colony of monks whose historian, Serlo, in a fine vigorous phrase, complains of the "importunity of the rains" (importunitas imbrium) which would not allow the crops to rejoice in the ripening rays of the sun. Nor was this all ; for in addition to outraged and therefore unhelpful villagers, and to Irish Sea vapours, the monks had to endure the depredations of pillaging Scots, whose thieving bands carried off cattle and sheep and sometimes greater spoil.

The monks of Sawley may have been made of sterner stuff, for they refused to be driven from their solitudes by Irish vapours or Scotch robbers. But neither did they have an Abbot Alexander at their head as the Barnoldswick monks had. This adventurous and ambitious man kept his eyes open for a "better 'ole," if one may be allowed to use this now classic phrase. He found it, too, in Kirkstall aforesaid ; and if any of my readers would like to know the negotiations and strategies by which he obtained possession of it, and built there the noble pile of the great Abbey and Church, he will find it set out in full in the Chronicles of Kirkstall and its Chartulary, or in the pages of Dugdale and Whitaker, and lesser historians who have followed in their wake. Barnoldswick people may reflect with pride that in a sense their town is the mother of the great Abbey whose noble ruins still look across the waters of Aire and which in its turn has become a possession of pride to one of the greatest of the great manufacturing and industrial cities of the North. We may venture to hope that Leeds people will not be wholly forgetful nor neglectful of the bonds which unite them to this homely old mother of theirs amongst the hills and moors.

1 Whitaker : History of Craven," pp. 43, 44.

CHAPTER IV.

Barnoldswick and Kirkstall.

HENRY DE LACY obtained his surname from the quaint little town of Lessay, or Lassy, in Normandy. He traced his descent from the Emperor Charlemagne, and was himself' brought up at the court of Henry III as a ward of the King. One of the most conspicuous and powerful barons of the realm, he was Lord of the Honour of Clitheroe, Baron of Halton, and hereditary Constable of Chester. He owned great estates in Yorkshire, Lancashire and elsewhere, including the Forest of Blackburnshire in which was some of the finest and merriest hunting in England in those days. Let me explain that the term "forest" in mediaeval usage did not necessarily mean woodland where trees grew thick together. It denoted stretches of hillside and countryside, moorland and marshland, as well as of timber. Now the "Forest" of
Blackburnshire bordered the manor of Barnoldswick for many miles across Weets and along the valley between it and Pendle. "Manor" also, by the way, is not to be understood in its modern signification, but as standing for the whole estate in arable land and pasture land, and even so-called "waste" of some baron or lord, with the humble homesteads and cottages of his retainers clustering round the hall. The contiguity of Blackburn Forest and Barnoldswick township and manor led, as we shall see, to disputes and lawsuits. But when Henry de Lacy granted Barnoldswick to Abbot Alexander and the monks, he came hither himself and with his attendant retinue "beat the bounds." The following statement of these bounds is extracted from Farrer's "Early Yorkshire Charters" :

"Notification by Henry de Lascy as to the boundary between Barnoldswick and his Forest of Blackburnshire as perambulated by him and his men when he delivered Barnoldswick to the monks of the Cistercian Order for the erection of an abbey there : namely by the stream called Blakebroc up the moor to Gailmers and so directly to Ellesagh across Blacko hill to Oxegill. and up Oxegill to the Pikedlawe called Alainsetc, thence to the ancient ditch between Middop and Coverdale."

The Kirkstall Chartulary also contains a similar statement of these boundaries, but with some variations : Clessaghe taking the place of Ellesagh, and Colredene that of Coverdale.' Dugdale's "Monasticon" substitutes Oregill. for Oxegille. (2) In Whitaker's 'History of Whalley’ he also refers to these boundaries, and adds this note : "Not one of these ancient names appears in the

1 V. Coucher Book of Kirkstall Abbey, published by the Thoresby Society, Vol. VII, Part II., pp. 189, 190.

2 Monasticon, V. p. 532.

~ h, .[

13

perambulation of the parish of Whalley of which the antiquity is uncertain but which cannot be later than the reign of Edward III. as it is found in the Coucher Book of Abbot Lyndlay" [of Whalley Abbey.] (1) Two hundred years, however, is a sufficiently long period to permit of the dying out of old names, especially in a forest.- Blacko, Midhope, and Coverdale still survive ; Oxegille is probably the present Ox Clough ; Ellesagh seems to have left no trace to modern days, but is no doubt identical with the Ellswater and Wauleswater mentioned in other charters. Blackbroc is undoubtedly the “County Brook" which now marks the boundaries of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The following note is added in Farrer's "Charters" :

'It will be observed from the description of the boundaries that Admergill was included in Barnoldswick. The boundary, after crossing Blacko Hill, ascended Oxgill in a north-westerly direction between Burn Moor on the right and 'Weethead on the left to the ' law ' or hill with a pike of stones on the summit, then known as ' Alainsete.(2) This was the summit of Burn moor (1,250 feet) and being an important point in the boundary of the Percy Fee in Craven, owed its name doubtless to a perambulation personally conducted by Alan de Percy in the time of Henry I.” (3)

I have not heard of any "beating of the bounds" of the parish of Barnoldswick within recent times, but it would be considerably more than a "Sabbath Day's journey;” for the whole round cannot be less, and may well be more, than 20 miles. However, the perambulation referred to above was not, of course, one of the whole boundary of the present parish, but only of that part of it which borders Lancashire.

Henry de Lacy's charter has been reprinted in "The Coucher Book of Kirkstall Abbey," for the printing of which all students of the history of bygone days are indebted to that Society. Amongst its "many witnesses" we find the names of Henry Murdac, Archbishop of York, referred to in a previous chapter. As he died 14th October, 1153, this confirmatory charter must have been given before then. The other witnesses include many priests (one of them a priest of Pontefract), a doctor, a "teacher of grammar," and one Gamellus, son of Besing, of whom we wonder whether he can have been a descendant of old Earl Gamel.

1 History of Whalley, I. 304,
2 ie., Alan's Seat. No trace of this name appears now to remain.

3 op. cit p.

The following translation of a few sentences of it will put my readers in possession of the main points of the Charter :

"Be it known to all men, living and to come, that I Henry de Lacy have given and granted, and by this my charter have confirmed, to God and St. Mary and the Abbot Alexander of Kirkstall and the monks there serving God, in pure and perpetual alms, for the building of an Abbey of the Cistercian Order, that place of Kirkestal and Bernolyeswick with all their appurtenances in wood and field, meadows and pastures and water, and in all which to the same lands belong, also Brackenleia (1) the vaccaria (2) next Lerundheia (3) and its pasture. And I grant these ... free and quit of all customs and soil-services for the salvation of my soul (4) and of the soul of Ilbert my grandfather and his wife Hawisia and [the souls of] my heirs and of my father and mother and my brothers and sisters and of Matilda my aunt and of all my ancestors and of all the faithful dead."

A fairly extensive list of the souls who were to benefit by the generosity of one mortal ; but this was, more or less, the regular form in which such donations were made in the Middle Ages.

The charter was confirmed a few years later by Robert de Lacy, son of Henry, who died in 1193. A copy, or the original, of Robert's charter was in the possession of Richard Hartley, of Barnoldswick, Coates, in the year 1655. Where it is now I do not know. Confirmation was again made by Roger de Lacy, Constable of Chester, who died about 1211. It would seem, therefore that the title of the Abbey of Kirkstall to Barnoldswick was secure enough; but it was not, as we shall see in what follows.

In the first place, it is not quite clear whether Ilbert de Lacy had or had not received a part of the manor of Barnoldswick either direct from the Conqueror, or from Roger of Poitou. Domesday Book shows that whilst apparently the greater part of it had passed with the Castle of Clitheroe to Roger, some part of it remained in the hands of the King. Lawton, in his book "Collections relating to the Dioceses of York and Ripon" (edit. 1842), stated that Henry de Lacy gave to the monks the town, or vill, only, and adds, "The Manor of Barnoldswick in the parish of Gilkirke in Yorks. was formerly parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster and never belonged to the Abbey of Kirkstall, and therefore was not tithe free” He adduces no authority for this statement, however, and it is contradicted by the documents quoted a little further on in this book which expressly affirm the gift of the manor.

But there was another and more serious flaw in the title deeds. Henry de Lacy, in making a present of Barnoldswick to the monks, was giving what, it appears, was not his to give, for his right to grant it was challenged by Hugh Bigod, the puissant Earl of Norfolk. Hugh declared that Henry was his tenant only, not owner of Barnoldswick ; and that he owed for it a yearly rent of five marks, or a palfrey of the same value, and a hawk. Hawks (falcons) and marks were valuable in those days, so we need not infer that Barnoldswick was only a mean possession because so seemingly small a rent was paid for it. Small or large, however, the rent had not been paid for many years and de Lacy may be forgiven for forgetting it, or, supposing that the Earls of Norfolk did not intend to exact it, nor to claim their possessions here again. Hugh soon dissipated this fond notion, for hearing of the mistaken generosity of Henry he asserted his claims, and the monks were obliged to surrender Barnoldswick. But Abbot Alexander was not the man to take meekly any despoiling of the possessions of his Abbey, and he went straight to the King (Henry II.) with his plaint. The King inclined a favourable ear to him, and summoning the truculent Bigod to his royal presence, reminded him that he, too, like de Lacy, was a sinner who needed the intercessions of Holy Church for the safety of his soul . Moved by this plea, in which Church and State so powerfully united, Earl Hugh restored Barnoldswick to the monks and their rejoicing Abbot, and did it in handsome terms. Like de Lacy, and being perhaps also unwilling to be the only sinner concerned in the transaction, he piously associated a dead aunt, and the rest of his ancestors in general, with himself. Perhaps my readers would like to have it in the original Latin, and I will leave it to them to translate. Here are the important words .

Henry de Lacy, ever active on behalf of the monks, obtained from the King a confirmation of this grant., so once more they appeared to be firmly settled in their possession of Barnoldswick. Perhaps it was just after this restitution and confirmation of their possessions here that they built Gill Church, in which to pray amongst other things, for the repose of the soul of Lady Aubrey de Lisle, the "Albrede de Insula" mentioned in Earl Hugh's grant.

The Elfwinetrop here mentioned, and also mentioned by Serlo, is said by some to be Ellenthorpe, near Gisburn; but this seems

unlikely, and the Rev. Mordaunt Barnard, Vicar of Barnoldswick,. 1820 to 1836, has the following note about it in a small booklet published by him on the History of Gill Church, now out of print :

“I can discern no trace of this township within the limits of the present parish of, Barnoldswick, by any similarity of name in houses or fields. It appears, however, by no means impossible that Elwinthorpe is the same as Ingthorpe, now in the parish of Marton and in the possession of R. H. Roundell, Esq. For that parish as mentioned before was originally included in Barnoldswick, and there is good reason to imagine that Ingthorpe was at that time a hamlet distinct from Marton, and would therefore be separately mentioned as one of the component townships of Barnoldswick. There is a very strong similarity between the two names, and the spelling of those times was not very well defined, but 'we find Ingthorpe variously spelt Uctiethorp, Unkethorpe, Hunkethorp, etc. The place to this day is exempt from any contribution to the roads within the Parish of Marton; the remains of a village were found near the present house of Ingthorpe by the late possessor ; and there is tradition of its having been destroyed and its inhabitants massacred in a plundering incursion by the Picts and Scots. The grange of Ingthorpe, some years after the period of which we are treating, belonged to Bolton Abbey, and as it appears that a pension was regularly paid by the Canons of that House to the Abbots and monks of Kirkstall it may be supposed that it was paid to them as the representatives of the old monastery at Barnoldswick, in consideration of Ingthorpe."

The latter supposition is not quite correct, for the whole of Marton, not Ingthorpe only, had been given to Bolton Abbey, and the "pension" was paid for all Marton.

Somewhere about the year 1150 Abbot Alexander made application to Henry Murdac, Archbishop, praying that the chapels of Bracewell and Marton, hitherto dependent on Barnoldswick, might be raised to the dignity of mother churches with parishes of their own ; the future parsons of Bracewell having tithing and parochial rights from Bracewell and Stock, and those of Marton having the same from East and West Marton; the mother church of Barnoldswick to be appropriated to the use of the abbot and monks.(1)

In 1156, Adrian IV., Pope of Rome, took the monks of Kirkstall, their church and all their estates, including, no doubt, Barnoldswick, under his protection ; no small pledge of security and peaceful possession in the days when the Papal writ ran far

1 Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, vol. I, charter 1471. See also Walbram's "Memorials of Fountains," Vol. 1. p. 91, note.
and wide, and even powerful and unruly monarchs trembled before it. This also was an achievement of Abbot Alexander, and another proof of his ability and statesmanship.

The history of Bracewell requires a volume to itself, but it may be of interest to add here anent its connection with Barnoldswick in old days that in the year 1340, and in the abbacy of William, 18th Abbot of Kirkstall, Richard Tempest, son of Roger, released and quit claimed all his right in the advowson of the church of that place and all the lands and other things belonging to the said church to the Abbot and Convent of Kirkstall. In 1347 the church was appropriated to the said Abbot and Convent by Wm. de la Zouche, Archbishop of York, who “ordained a vicarage therein.” (1)

1. History of Kirkstall by James Wardell, 5th edition. P 34. See also the Zouche chapel MSS at York.

CHAPTER V.

The Building of Gill Kirk.

THE struggle of the migrant monks with the Scots, the clouds, and the villagers narrated in Chapter 111. continued for some six or seven years ; to be exact, until the year 1152.(1) Then in the early summer months again the monks turned their backs on unkindly Bernulfleswick and moved away to Kirkstall. Thenceforward for 400 years the history of the little village amongst the hills is bound up with that of the great monastery ; and, though not without dispute and interruption, as we shall see, the manor of Barnoldswick became a grange of the Abbey.

In the year 1160, or thereabouts, some of the monks returned to build here a church to replace the demolished one, and to be dedicated, like their monastery, in honour of St. Mary the Virgin. For some obscure reason, however, they chose to build it not on the site of the old one, nor even in the town itself, but away down by the side of the little stream which divides this parish from Thornton ; for which reason the church came to he named the "Church of St. Mary-le-Gill," or as it is mostly called in subsequent centuries,---Gill Kirk,"(2) and to-day “Gill Church” Perhaps they built it there, as Dr. Whitaker supposes, in order to provide means of grace for the people of Marton and Thornton as well as for those of Barnoldswick. There is, however, some ground for thinking that the real reason was not so creditable to the monks, but rather due to lingering malice against the unlucky inhabitants whose too punctilious church-going had inconvenienced them at first. They had to build a church, so we may suppose, in accordance with the Pope's sentence, but they vented their spleen by putting it in an out-of-the-way place. Marton folk certainly did not long require to use Gill Church, for the Marton estate was transferred a few years later to Bolton Priory, from which a yearly rent or acknowledgment of 20s. was regularly paid to Kirkstall. The Priors of Bolton built a church for Marton before 1186, when a certain William is mentioned as its Rector. (3) Thornton Church, very similar in its architecture, stands less than half a mile away from Gill Church. Whitaker thus quaintly comments on their proximity : “A traveller is struck with the vicinity of this church [i.e., Thornton] and that of Barnoldswick, which stand at the extremity of their respective parishes and look as if they had moved by agreement from their proper sites to give each other the meeting.” The building of Thornton Church was probably some fifty years later than that of Gill ; at least there seems to be no record of that church before the time

1 So the Victoria County History, apparently following Dugdale. Whitaker gives it as 1153.
2 With a great variety of spellings: Gilkirk, Gyllkirke, St. Mary le Ghyll, etc.
3 Whitaker: "History of Craven," p. 77.

of Henry III. This would rule out the interesting conjecture that the two churches were built contemporaneously by the monks, one band of builders vying with the other, and both sharing materials, and perhaps the supervision of Abbot Alexander himself when he could spare time from his greater labours' at Kirkstall.

Opinions differ as to whether any part of the original church of the monks still remains. Possibly, as Whitaker thinks, the present east end, with its three lancet windows and its slender buttresses, is that which these first builders erected. There is an early English (almost Norman) window in the north side of the chancel wall which may well be of that date. The 14th century was a period of active church repair and church building, and probably about then the low-pitched roof was raised and the south gable added. There is no mention that I have been able to find of a Chantry at Gill, otherwise the east end of that aisle, with the present vestry, may have been a Chantry Chapel. The solid massive tower, of unusual width, was added later still in the days
of Henry VIII., for it bears the date 1524 carved thus: "CCCCCXXIV." with the symbol M for 1,000 omitted, an omission of which Whitaker says that he has found no other example. (1) Some years ago a massive stone coffin was dug up in the churchyard. This may have contained the remains of one of the monkish builders who died whilst the work was still in progress. There is also an ancient lavabo, or holy water stoup, which probably belonged to the oldest church. The font is of early date, certainly pre-Reformation, and may have been put in by the twelfth century builders. The furnishings of the present church, its three-decker pulpit; fine carved oak Holy Table, and old pews
(with the exception of a few easily distinguished nineteenth century pitch pine ones) belong to the Jacobean period, about 1620 to 1630 ; and are the most interesting features of it now, because the zeal of the church restorers of last century has swept away most of the once numerous ecclesiastical remains of that period. The greatly needed restoration of the old stone-tiled roof tiles and timbers dating back to the fourteenth century, is being made as this chapter is being penned, and is being carried out with the help of the advice of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.

For further information about the church, its memorials, etc., I may be allowed to refer my readers to a little booklet, "Gill Kirk," which I published a short time ago.(2) Sir Stephen Glynne, the famous antiquarian, visited the church in 1860, and the

1. "History of Craven," p. 70. Possibly the M was accidentally cut off when the stone was being chiselled to fit in its place, and was not replaced on the neighbouring one.
2. Price 6d., to be had from the Vicar, or Verger.

following note of his visit as recorded by himself, is copied from the Yorkshire Archaeological Society's journal :

(The church stands) ---In a lonely and rather romantic spot away from the populous part of the parish. Like the neighbouring churches, it is essentially late Perpendicular, has a nave and chancel each with south aisle, west tower, and south porch. There is one lancet (window) on the north of the chancel, and the east window is a triplet, the remains of original work. The other windows are square-headed, of three lights, mostly without foils but not entirely so. The arcade is of pointed arches with octagonal columns; those in the nave large and with capitals. There is no architectural distinction of nave and chancel, but the nave is of five, the chancel of two, bays. The aisle is low ; the roofs have stone slates. One window north of the chancel has a label and head corbels. There is a doorway on the south, within the porch which has a Norman look, but is doubtful. The tower is large and late Perpendicular, embattled with corner buttresses, a square turret, at the north-east, and is unbroken by strings. The belfry windows of two lights, no door, but a three-light west window, poor and without foils. The outer walls are partially stuccoed. There is an organ. The font has a circular bowl on a stem of like form. In the churchyard are some stone coffins, and what appears to be a font."

There is one rather strange-for so careful an observer-slip here. There are only five bays in all in the church, not, as one might gather from Sir Stephen's account, seven.

There are three bells in the tower, which were placed in position in 1723. The first of these has a diameter of 28 inches and bears the inscription: “Peace and good neighbourhood A.R. [Anna Regina] 1723.” The second is one inch larger in diameter, and its inscription is : “Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's and unto God the things that are God's, A.R. 1723” The tenor bell is 32 inches in diameter and has as its inscription : "Wm. Drake Esq., Ch. Warden A.R. 1723” William Drake, of Coates Hall, was the donor of the bells.

CHAPTER VI.

Scots Marauders.

WHILE these things were going on in Barnoldswick, things fraught with great consequence were happening in a wider world, and some at least of them sent their reverberations into the quiet solitudes of our valleys and hills. Barnoldswick, for weal or woe, lies off the main ways through which has surged the life of England in war and in commerce. We are in a back water among the hills, and for the most part captains and kings have passed us by. Yet even here, and in those days when our inaccessibility was tenfold greater than now, the events that were happening in England left their marks on our village, and it may be worth our while to glance just for a moment at this bigger world. Stephen, grandson of William the Conqueror, was king when the monastery was built here, and in the very year of its building, 1147, Matilda, his great rival, had escaped across the ice on the Thames to return to Normandy; and her ally, David of Scotland, had been defeated in the Battle of the Standard at Northallerton. Prior to that deliverance from them the marauding bands of Scots had penetrated into Craven, possibly to Barnoldswick, and a battle, with a different result to that of "the Standard" had been fought at Clitheroe in the summer of 1138. The following picture of an invading Scots army may raise a smile on our faces now, but in those old days their appearance filled with terror the hearts of the inhabitants of the towns and villages in all the North, almost as far as Trent itself :

"They are mounted on little hackneys that are never tied up nor dressed, but turned immediately after the day's march to pasture on the heath or in the fields. . . . They bring no carriages with them on account of the mountains they have to pass in Northumberland, neither do they carry with them any provisions of bread or wine, for their habits of sobriety are so in time of war that they will live for a long time on flesh half-sodden, without bread, and drink the river water without wine. They have, therefore, no occasion for pots or pans, for they dress the flesh of the cattle in their skins after they have flayed them, and being sure to find plenty of them in the country which they invade they carry none with them. Under the flaps of his saddle each man carries a broad piece of metal, behind him a little bag of oatmeal: when they have eaten too much of the sodden flesh and their stomach appears weak and empty they set this plate over the fire, knead the meal with water, and when the plate is hot put a little of the paste upon it and [bake] a thin cake like a biscuit which they eat to warm their stomachs. It is therefore no wonder that they perform a longer day's march than other soldiers." (1)

Whitaker gives us an extract from another chronicler (Ricardus Prior Hagustald) which affords us a glimpse of the same armies engaged in their work of pillage and rapine :

“In the year 1138, while David, King of Scotland, was engaged in the siege of Norham, he detached the Picts and part of his [Scottish] army, under the command of William, son of Duncan, his nephew, into Yorkshire. Here they laid waste the possessions of a celebrated monastry called Suthernesse [i.e. Furness, probably] and the province called Crafna [i.e. Craven] with fire and sword. In their work of destruction no rank or age and neither sex was spared; children were butchered before the faces of their parents, husbands in sight of their wives and wives of their husbands : matrons and virgins of condition were carried away indiscriminately with other plunder, stripped naked, bound together by ropes and thongs and goaded along with the points of swords and lances. Similar outrages had been committed in former wars but never to the same extent. In their march northward, however, some of the captors, touched with compassion, set their prisoners at liberty as offerings to the Church of St. Mary at Carlisle ; but the barbarous Picts dragged away their wretched captives without mercy into their own country. In short, these brutal savages to whom adultery and incest were familiar, after having fatigued themselves with acts of lust and violence, either retained the females as slaves in their houses, or sold them like cattle to the other barbarians." (2)

I need not reproduce the moralizings of the learned historian on this "shocking passage" ; but content myself with pointing out that there are some advantages in living in Craven Dale to-day rather than 800 years ago.

The same historian informs us that some years prior to this time a discovery had been made in a ditch close to the Church of St. Mary-le-Gill of "an old English tankard of wood with a broad rim of copper, gilt and richly chased, together with a small jar of bell metal, which last had it been found alone, or in other company I should have thought Roman; but they were probably thrown here in some of the plundering excursions of the Scots." (3) One would like to know what was the fate of this "find," and where these vessels are now.

IN the days of Edward III, somewhere about the years 1330 to 1340, a great contention arose between the monks of Kirkstall and Queen Isabella, mother of the king, concerning the possession of a part of Barnoldswick. We have seen in a previous chapter that Henry de Lacy took some pains to make clear the boundaries between the manor which he had bestowed upon the monks and “his forest of Blakeburnshire.” In spite, however, of his beating of the bounds they remained vague and ill-defined, and frequent trespasses of the hunters in the Forest in their pursuit of game up the Lancashire side of Weets were followed by claims that these hill slopes belonged to them and not to the monks. By a curious coincidence the first, or at any rate an early, aggressor in this respect was another Henry de Lacy, the great Earl of Lincoln, about whom William de Driffield, Abbot of Kirkstall from 1325 to 1349, makes complaint that “in the time of King Edward II. grandfather of the king that now is he [the Earl] had hindered Hugh de Grymston sometime abbot. predecessor of the abbot that now is, and had possessed himself of about 840 acres of moor, wood, and pasture appurtenance of the manor [of Barnoldswick]" This was about the year 1300, just 150 years later than the grant by the first Henry de Lacy. In defence of the Earl it should be said that he may have thought that he had a legal claim to these acres. For in 1287 he had come very handsomely to the aid of the community at Kirkstall by advancing them a sum of 350 marks to pay off debts due to Jewish money-lenders, who, after the manner of their kind were pressing the monks and their abbot hard. As security for this money he had been given certain lands in "Blackburnshire," and it may quite well have been that he supposed these to include Barnoldswick, or a part of it. The curious may find fuller details as to the transaction in the pages of Whitaker or in the Thoresby Society's publications. (2) The correspondence quoted by Whitaker shows that the monks were not above using the "craft of the serpent" in their dealings with the Earl.

But the brush with the Earl of Lincoln was a bagatelle compared with the cause celebre of the quarrel with Queen Isabella thirty years later. Henry de Lacy bad surrendered the barony of Pontefract and other of his possessions to the King in 1292, and they had passed to Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, and from him to Thomas Plantagenet, on whose attainder for treason King Edward Ill. had made a grant of the Forest of Blackburn to his mother, Queen

1 "History of Craven," pp. 66, 67.
2 Vol. IV., p. 194.

Isabella. Her foresters were perpetually making inroads on the Barnoldswick preserves and even demanding "Puture" (1) of the tenants of the manor until at last things came to a head, as is shown in the following document extracted from the "Close Rolls" (A.D. 1328, Feb. 25, at York) :-

"To John Giffard, Steward of Queen Isabella’s lands this side Trent-

Whereas Henry de Lacy sometime lord of Blakeburnshire granted by charter to God and St. Mary and to Alexander then Abbot of Kirkstall and to the monks there the manor of Bernolveswyk co. York on the foundation [or, perhaps, towards the foundation ; original "in fundatione"] of the said abbey to hold in frankalmoin free and quit from all customs and worldly services and the king lately at the prosecution of the present abbot by petition before him and his council-suggesting that although the manor is outside Queen Isabella's free chace of Blakeburnsnire nevertheless Richd. de Merclesdon her chief forester of that chace and certain other of her ministers of that chace have exacted puture of the abbot on Friday in every week by reason of the said manor endeavouring to charge him therewith contrary to the tenor of the said charter-frequently ordered the aforesaid steward to cause the exacture of the puture aforesaid to be superseded if the manor is outside the said chace or to certify the king if there was any reason why he should not obey these orders and the steward has returned amongst other things that although the manor is outside the said chace he dare not supersede the exacture of the puture without consulting the King and Queen Isabella because he has enquired and learned from the said queen's ministers and by others that the aforesaid Richard and the other foresters aforesaid and their predecessors have been wont to receive the aforesaid puture from the abbot and his predecessors at the said manor from old time to wit in the time and throughout the time when John de Lacy sometime Earl of Lincoln, Edmund his son, Henry son of Edmund, Thomas late Earl of Lancaster, (2) the late king, and the present King, and Queen Isabella were successively lords of Blakeburnshire, as pertaining to the foresters aforesaid for the custody of the chace-and that the aforesaid Richard has the chief custody of the chace for the time of his life by the King's grant-but that he had not yet ascertained whether or not the foresters of the aforesaid John's ancestors in the chace were seized of the puture aforesaid because he did not find anyone living who remembered any lord of the chace before John's time-the King not wishing to aggrieve the abbot orders

1 Food for men, horses and dogs.
2 i.e., Thomas Plantagenet, who married Alice, only surviving child of Henry de Lacy.

the steward to cause Richard and the other foresters to desist from the exaction of such puture from the abbot notwithstanding the cause aforesaid which is naught and to relieve any distresses, levied from the abbot for this reason."

The above sentence-for it is all one sentence-contains 425 words ! Some of my readers may like to lighten their historical studies by getting a friend to read it aloud to them. Its lengthy wordiness is in keeping with the length of the suit between the King (or Queen) and the abbot. For in 1335 (March 28th) we find the following, also in the Close Rolls :

“At Nottingham: To Geoffrey le Scroop and his fellows, justices appointed to hold pleas before the King.

The Abbot of Kirkstall has besought the King-whereas lately at his suit by his petitions before the King and his council in divers parliaments pretending that he has a right in certain parcels of pasture and wastes pertaining to the manor of Bernolfswyk and within the king's forest of Blakeburnshire which is in the hands of Queen Isabella by the King's grant, and Henry de Lacy late Earl of Lincoln and Hugh de Grymestone sometime abbot of the said place has been disseised of those pastures and wastes and the abbot has long prosecuted against the King and the said Queen for obtaining justice in this respect and the King had sent to those justices certain inquisitions taken thereupon together with the said petitions by his writ and had ordered them to proceed in the said affair and cause justice to be done, and afterwards the justices altogether superseded the process of that affair so held before them under colour of a writ of privy seal of the King directed to them that they should not proceed farther in that affair the King ordered them by another writ of privy seal to proceed to the final discussion of that affair notwithstanding the said order but not to proceed to render justice without consulting the King-that the King will be pleased to order judgment to be rendered thereupon-the King therefore orders the justices to proceed to render judgment in that affair with all possible speed notwithstanding the said order to the contrary.

By the King and Council.”

An earlier document throws light upon these delays of justice and changes of the royal mind:

Patent Rolls 4 Edw. III. (1331), March 16, at Winchester.

The steward in whose custody are the charters writings and other muniments of the honour of Pontefract and the lands and forest of Blakeburnshire is commanded to certify whether there is any writing or other deed which will avail the King to exclude the abbot.

There is no doubt that there was good hunting to be had in the valleys and on the hills round Barnoldswick, and the King was obviously reluctant to relinquish his claims to it even for the sake of Mother Church. The litigation was costly for Kirkstall for “a fine" of 40s.” was paid by them at York, January 28th, 1331, for a "Grant that they shall not hereafter be called upon to provide puture," which, by the way, in this document is said to have been exacted "every Wednesday," not Friday as stated in the Close Roll quoted. Wednesday being a "flesh day" (mostly) would entail a more grievous exaction, probably, than Friday, a "fish day."

There is also record of “an Inquisition" taken at "Blakhou by Colne" at which John, the Queen's steward, and others said “that the tenements are parcel and of the appurtenances of the free chace of Penhill within the forest of Blackeburnshire within the county of Lancaster and without the county of York."

This question as to within which county lay the lands in dispute afforded the King another pretext for delay. For finding that it was a question between Lancashire and Yorkshire he ordered a jury from each county to be empanelled to try the case, no doubt with further interminable wrangling. The land itself was of small value, for it is stated to be "sour" (morosa), worth only "a halfpenny an acre” and consisting of "rough uncultivated pasture fit only for large animals to feed upon." It was the hunting over it which made it valuable. The amount in dispute varies considerably, for while in one document it is said to be 840 acres in another it is alleged that no less than 3,000 acres "of the best place within the forest" were involved.

The documents relating to this dispute in the Kirkstall Coucher Book fill no less than 13 pages of that record. They have been made accessible to the student by the Thoresby Society.(1) They are partly in Latin, partly in Norman French. They are well worth studying for the information which they afford as to the processes of the law in the 14th century.

Another note of interest culled from these documents is that the grange of Barnoldswick had been leased by the Abbey to one Peter de Cestria, who held it till the end of his life in 1298. The Thoresby Editors inform us that he was Provost of Beverley, “a notable ecclesiastical pluralist, and a man of great wealth. He was also a judge."

1. Vol. VII., Part III, pp. 321-339, of the Publications of the Society.

CHAPTER VIII.

After the Lawsuit.

THE final verdict of the various courts which tried the case was in favour of Kirkstall as against the King and Queen. Nevertheless other delays took place in the execution of justice.

In 1340 we find a Roll bearing the strange date "May 32," at Westminster: ---“Inspeximus and confirmation of letters patent” of Queen Isabella granting to the abbot and convent of Kirkstall all tenements then in her hands within the bounds of the manor of Bernolfwyk in the counties of Lancaster and York."

But a Roll dated May 16th, 1342, is an exemplification of a writ bearing date 26th June 14 Edw. III. (1341), commanding the bailiffs and foresters of Queen Isabella to permit the abbot and convent of Kirkstall "to have without impediment certain tenements in the counties of York and Lancaster lately recovered against the King and the said Queen by judgment of court as pertaining to the manor of Bernolswyk (1) co. York."

The legal proceedings had dragged on over the space of thirteen to fourteen years. And at the end of it all, and in spite of the judgment delivered in favour of the Abbey, the royal plunderers seem to have kept their prey. For in 1374 we find the following among the Fine Rolls :-

“48 Edw. III. May 13. Commitment to the Abbot of Kirkstall by mainprise of Hugh de Wombwell and Walter Toppeclyf of the county of York-of the keeping of 100 acres of pasture in Admergill, late of the said abbot which have been taken into the King's hands for certain causes by Richard de Radclyf escheator in the county of Lancaster to hold the same with the issues from the time of such taking until it be decided in the King's court whether the pasture ought to pertain to the King or the abbot, provided that he answer at the Exchequer for the above and for all other issues of the premises, if the decision be in the King's favour, and also keep the pasture without waste and destruction and support the real services and all other charges due and accustomed.”

Again in Whitaker's "History of Whalley" there is quoted a grant made by Richard II, in 1391 of the "vaccary"(2) of Admergill, to William, son of John de Radclyff. And a few years later, in 1406 (Nov. 16, Charter Rolls) we find recorded a grant made by Henry IV. at Westminster:-

"Grant of special grace to Thomas, Bishop of Durham, Wm. Gascoigne and Wm. Keteryng, their heirs and assigns, of free chace and free warren in their manor of Barnolfwyk, co. York."

1. Note the dropping of the " f," and the approximation to the present form.
2 ie. stock-raising ground.

"Grant to Henry archbishop of Canterbury, Henry bishop of Winchester, Thomas bishop of Durham, Richard bishop of Norwich, Edward duke of York, Thomas earl of Arundel, Thomas earl of Dorset, Ralph earl of Westmoreland, Henry Fitzhugh, Henry Lescrope, Roger Lecke, Walter Hungerford, and John Phillippes knights, Hugh Mortimer, John Wodehouse, and John Leventhorpe esquires of the castles and manors of Halton and Clyderhowe (1) . . . the wapentake of Blackburnshire (2)[sic] . . . the manors of Kylburne and Bernolfwyk with the chace of Bernolfwyk co. York ... Also all other lands late of Henry de Lacy earl of Lincoln, in the counties of Lancaster and Cheshire.” (2)[sic]

The bishops of the 15th century were not averse to other kinds of hunting than that of "souls" ; and the "chace of Bernolfwyk" was evidently a tit-bit. But these grants seem to prove that "Naboth's Vineyard" in Barnoldswick was finally retained by the Ahabs of the House of Plantagenet.

Perhaps the successors of Alexander in the abbacy of Kirkstall were not men of like calibre with him, and having no Elijah to vindicate their cause in the quarrel with royalty succumbed at last. Perhaps they regarded Barnoldswick as so distant a possession that its loss grieved them less than it might have done. That they did not lose the whole of the manor is evident from documents quoted later in this book ; but their estates here dwindled from the wide domains granted them by de Lacy to (probably) a few acres, and the church at Gill with the advowson and the tithes.

Nor was the litigation with Royalty the only trouble of its kind which befell the Abbot of Kirkstall in his dealings with Barnoldswick, for in 1344 (whilst the other suit was scarcely concluded) we have an account of a lawsuit between him and one Simon de Blakay in which the abbot complains that the said Simon (not so simple as some of that name) “had with force and arms cut down and carried away the abbot's trees at Bernolwyk to the value 0f 100s. [£5. SCG]" (2) Nor is this the only record if its kind.

As some compensation for these losses, we may remember the grant made to the Abbey by Richard Tempest, in 1340, of the advowson and lands of Bracewell.(3)

WE have no certain information as to whether any of the Kings and Queens of England visited Barnoldswick after taking possession of it as a royal manor, prior to the time of Henry VI. That monarch did come hither, albeit somewhat driven by force of circumstances against his will, if not to Barnoldswick itself, at any rate to its vicinity. After the Battle of Hexham in
1464 in which his forces were routed by the Yorkists, Henry found refuge for a time at Bracewell Hall, with Sir John Tempest, that staunch upholder of the Lancastrian cause. "King Henry's Parlour" still stands, though shorn of the splendour which it possessed when the King supped in it. It is thus described by the Rev. S. T. Taylor-Taswell, erstwhile Vicar of Bracewell:-

"The building is to the north of Bracewell Hall, and is about twenty-one yards wide by thirty to thirty-three yards long, and of proportionate height. The architecture appears to belong to the 13th century, but the stone mullions of the window are blocked up, and the place is at present used as a kind of barn. It was here, however, that the unfortunate King passed some considerable time. The church is quite close, and to that, too, he must often have repaired. It could be seen from the window on the east side. It was from the safe retreat of Bracewell that he passed to Waddington, where he was betrayed by the Talbots, and taken to London to be imprisoned in the Tower."

The people of Barnoldswick would almost certainly have caught some glimpses of the royal fugitive, either when riding abroad for exercise, or for hunting, when it was deemed safe for him to do so; or even at his dinner in the "Parlour."

The following documents show that this continued to be a royal manor in the time of Henry VII; and they afford so vivid and so interesting a glimpse of the life of our township in Tudor times that we make no apology for quoting from them at some length. The extracts have been made from the original MSS. of the Duchy of Lancaster now in the Public Record Office in London.

1.
The first of them bears date 17 Henry VII. (i.e., 1501) :-

"To Sir Rich. Henson Kt. chancellor of the Duchy [Lancaster] Henry Pudsey Esq. fermor to the Sovereign Lord the King of his Lordshippe and manor of Barnolsweke in the county of Yorke parcel of the said Duchie : That one Christopher Banaster in forcible manner contrarye to the order of lawe hathe wrongfully occupyed a parcell of me said farm called Brokden having thereunto no manner of title ... by the mynes whereof your orator is gretly endangereth and unabille to contente and pay his scale and is like to lose the land."

Brokden is the modern Brogden ; the "orator" is the petitioner, Henry Pudsey.

"Answere of Christopher [Banaster] that the parcell of ground called Brollyn [sic] is the inheritance of our sovereign lord and the ferme thereunto is and hath been VIIl. VIs VIIId [£7-6-8] which by the space of XXXVIII years hath as well and truly at the days accustomed been paid."

"Replication of Henry Pudsey Esq. to the answer of Xpher Banaster.

The plot defendant calls Browyn is also known as Brokden part of the fermehold of Henry which he allowed Xpher to occupy for 3 or 4 years unto such a tyme that Newarke field (1) was where the Erle of Lincoln was slayne at which tyme the said Xpher being in the retynue of the said Henry then stole away from hym wherewith the said Henry was miscontented and warned hym thereupon to avoid (2) the said ground. He has by favour of his friends continued to hold it and withholdeth yerely VIs and IIId of the rent of old tyme due for the same and of the newe encrease of the same XLs ... and also he refuseth to be sworn [?]. to the Kynge accordyng to the Kynge's commandment and also refuseth to pay yerely such amerciaments (3) as be cessed uppon hym."

"Rejoinder of Christopher Banaster. Denies that he was with Henry at the said field or stole away as he hath of males(4) surmysed. For he fond a man to do the kynge's grace service (5) as the Retynue of the said Henry at the said tyme wherewith the said Henry was then contentyed ... and withouten that the said Christopher [sic, slip for Henry] would have had the said Christopher sworn to hym which he refuseth to doo. He says that Henry dovthe resseyve LXVI li and more and what the encrease is he knoweth not."

II.

“Complaint to Richard Emson Kt. of Richard Botheman one of the kynge's tenauntes of the Lordship of Barnallwyke who sued for letters of Privy seal which was direct unto Henry Pudsey the elder the 20th April ordering him to apere within 12 days after the sight thereof & suffer your beseecher to occupy his fermeholde & to be in peace-which to do the said Henry would not in no wise but in contempt send John Atkynson Robert Sothorne Thomas Welles William Bracewell Robert Watson & Walter Rymmin unto the house of your beseecher and brake the hous & entered riotously with swordes bockelers billes and stakes and asked the wife of your poure orator where her husband was and she said that he was gone forth she couthe not tell whither. then sayd they except she told theyme where he was she should have the strokes that he should hade if he hade beyne ye ane in any wise she refused to tell theyme and then they smote her upon the hede and the armes and the sydes that she bare thare markes unto her grave and also drew her out of her hous by the hare of her hede unto the strete. She beyng impotent and grete with chyld lay under a hege all the nyght and ii days the said Henry commandyng that no man should help her nor socoure her then within VII wokes next after she laboured of chylde and then she toke it upon her salle [? Soul] (6) that the strokes that they hadde giffen her before were the

1. Battle of Newark, one of the skirmishes of the "Wars of the Roses."
2. i.e. surrender his farm at Brogden.
3. i.e. levies, the equivalent of the modern rates and taxes.
4. -Malice.
5. Feudal service by deputy or proxy was allowed.
6. i.e. she made dying oath.

31

cause of her dethe and of her childe then a crowners inquest were charged and they founde that she was perisshed by the strokes aforesaid butt which of theyme they couthe nott tell that gaff her the strokes please itt your gode maistership to provide a due remydie."

Replication of Henry Pudsey:-

“The said Richard Botheman is & was retained with Richd. Tempest was amerced in £iii or certain affairs and blodesheds agenst the King's peas and was possessed of the 2 kyne and 11 bushels of barley as of his privates godes and that Robert Sewthrom distreyned the said godes and was ledyng them to the hous of Henry at Bolton (1) & Tempest in riotous and forcible manner rescussed the said distress from the said bailiff & caste off the said corne of the horse’s bakkes. No hue or crye was levied or that the servauntes of the said Henry fledd from the said cornes as the said Thomas hath craftely and untruely feyned or that Nicholas Tempest lent the ii kyne to Rich. Botheman or by vertue of eny repleven as Thomas of hys malice hathe slanderouslye sermysed or that the wife of the said Botheman was murdered. he sayth she died by goddes visitation as is well knowen, & never strikken or mysentreted by any servaunt of the seid Henry."

Letter from the King :

“Trusty and welbeloved. We grete you wele leting you wite that it is shewed unto us and our counsaill by bille of complainte on the behalf of the tenauntes of our town of Barnalswyke reciting in effecte certain injuries and wronges surmysed to bee don unto thaym by oon Henry Pudsey thelder and Henry Pudsey his son as by the contynne of the said bille whiche we sende unto you herein closed ye may percyve more at large whereupon we trusting in yor wisdomes and indifferencies wol and desire you and by these presents give unto you full powre and auctoritie to call in or name the said parties before you and thereupon groundely to examyne the contentes of the said bylle with the circumstaunces of the same and thereupon to certifie the trouthe and playnes of the matier in writing unto or trusty counsaillr Sr Richard Emson Knyght Chauncellor of oure duchye of lancastre on this side the fest of all saintes next comyng without any failling as ye tender our pleasure and the good prferement of justice, given under our private seal at our manor of Grenewiche the last of Maye."

Petition of Henry Pudsey:

“The King by his indenture demysed to him the manor and lordshipp of Barnoldeswyke with the view of Frankpledge to him and his assigns at a rent named now Rich. Bouthman late a tenaunt & a man of evill disposion for iii several affraies to the grete disturbance of the kynge's peas was amerced xxs eche in all iii Ii [£3]and according to the usual custom distraint was made by one Robt Soltroun-viz on 2 kyne and 12 bushells of barley in Saxys & he drove the kyne to a close called the parke & intended to convey the saxys to Bolton & Thos. Tempest being a wild man & of light disposition with ix personnes in manner of warre with bowes arowes swerdes & bokelers toke from the said Robert the XII bushells of barley. Likewise Nicholas Tempest his brother with IX simple personnes Robt Waddyngton Henry Edmondeson Christopher Boutheman Christopher Weddaker John Hanson Thos Garforth Rich Wilson Wm. Knollys & Robt Wetley armed in like manner came into the manor of Barnoldeswyke breke open the loke and gates of the Parke and took away kyne to the gret damage of the fermor."

1 Bolton-by-Bolland.

Replication of Thomas Tempest:
“That Robt Soten came carying and leydyng the said barley throo the lordship of Craven & that the wife of Rich. Boothman raised the hue and crie that she was robbed and her substance despoiled and he made to overtake the seid Felons who avoided the corne from their horses and departed and he tooke the corne to the house of Henry Dykynson wher it yet ys .... and the wyfe of Richard was sleyn and murdered by on of the housewold servauntes of Henry Puddesey which servaunt is fleed. He says the ii kyne belonged to Nicholas his brodur and that he sued for them before the sheriff."

Petition of the tenants of "Barnarlswyke in Craven"

(Follows a list of 29 names.)

"They hold of your Highness and his ancestors time without mind a Barne to lodge their corne in & paid 20s for it & repaired it-now Henry Pudsey the elder steward of the lordship has taken it down and carried away the sclate to his own building at Bolton, so they have no place to store corn in & on the 17th April last Wm. Bracewell Robt Sothern Thos Willes John Atkynson & Robt Watson servauntes to Henry came to the house of Rich. Botheman oon of your tenauntes the said Rich. and his wife beyng from home aboute there besynes and there caste oute all the goods of the said Richard and an old woman thereyn beyng of thage of xx/IIII (1) yeres and more and caste oute all the said Richards chyldren upon the stones in the strete in soerche that on[e] off the said children of thage of V yern is sore hurt and lieth in jeopardy of his lyfe and also they toke away wt them XIII bushells of barley & the gooddes of the said Richard.

Then follow further complaints of ill treatment of John Edmundson and of Elizabeth his wife, whom "they bet wounded and evil intretyd." Further, "Henry Pudsey the younger with iiii men in the 16th yre of your reign at Barnalswyke bet wounded & ill intretyd the same John" so badly as to leave him helpless "ne able to labor for his owne lyvyn." And the complaint proceeds, "Whereas your tenauntes have always been accustomed to have wood and tymber to build and repair their houses they are nowe in such decaye they shall not be able to bild ne kepe them up & if they ask for any Henry bids them to sett fyre to them and go there way & yff they take any he empanells his servauntes as a jurye at court to fynd all such things as he shall comaund them."

In Henry's reply to this catalogue of crimes, he declares that he had notified the Chancellor of the Duchy about the decay of the barn and had been authorised by him to "save the best sclats in all about XX noders." He (Henry) had let Boothman the house “to hold of him," and had given him "lawful warning to go and avoyd" and he would not. That the oxen were on his land and doing damage and he had ordered them to be brought to the King's -lawfull pound." That Edmondson and Elizabeth began the attack. And that the tenants are not entitled to wood except at the will of the farmer.

Complaints of further misdemeanours of Henry Pudsey. In one of them it is stated that Henry had a lordship of his own called "Rymyngton," and it lies next the lordship of Barnoldswick. Henry has annexed 20 acres of the King’s land at “Fote house yate” (2) worth 13s. 4d. "He hath belded a house with the King's tymber on the King's waste and let it taking the rent."

Further, he has broken down a “grete barne” which he was bound to repair and carried the stone to Bolton, "except 6 lode of sclat with which he covered the King's Mylne.” His servant, William Bracewell “selled 3 okes 3 ashes and 3 crabtrees in the King's woodes." Further still he "hath letten a house in the
King's woods to one Thomas Welles a wright who dayley maketh cartes and waynes and chestes of the King's wood," which he sells, various folk to whom he has sold them being enumerated, and so “getteth hym meckell(3) money of the kynge's wod." To these charges, Pudsey replies by a brusque denial of the first, "He did not encroach on 20 acres at Fote hous Yate." The house he has
built is to the King's profit, and he does not call any of the Kinge's grounds his. That he has not caused waste by "takyng downe a gret barne." “That Wm. Braswell by his order sold “3 okes, 3 ashes and 3 crabtrees is not true." He continues with a further denial and a tu quoque: "That he did not take any of the king's wood to his own use, but Edmundson [the complainant] did take 1 part and Richd. Tempest and Xpher Banaster another, and that he sold a tre worth 6s. for Remyngton Bryge is not true it was a wyndfallen tre and belonged to him." John Edmundson is not prepared to take this lying down, but retaliates with other charges in which he states that Barnoldswick is---a towneship of 60 housholds and the tenants hold of the kind paying rent at the usual times." Henry Pudsey maliciously turned his [john's] cattle out of "the Parke which is part of his ferme and some of the said bestes the said Henry Pudsey drove away and broke with dogges." But there is a still more serious charge made against Henry the high-handed:

1. fuel to burn
2 Foot House Gate.
3 -Mickle, Much'.

"And Saturday after 15 servauntes of Henry with Jakes, Salettes (1), bowes and arowes came into the towne of Berlewike(2) and took, John Diconson to Bolton and keped hym in prison and yett keepes notwithstanding ye said suppliauntes labored to the sheriff and to the kynge's justice of peas." Also 15 others "came on St. Peter's eveyn to Berlewike" with the same weapons of war-“and made a sault upon one John Edmundson one of the Kynge's tenauntes and bett and wounded hym so that he is yett in perdie of his life." “Also he breketh downe dayly the hegges and dikes of their corne feyldes so that by the means and cautill wise of the said Henry their corn is destroyed and they cannot pay their rents." John Edmundson further alleges that the king's tenants have held "the Parke 40 years paying 32s. rent . . It has never been let for more."

Now comes an interesting document. Reply of Hy. Pudsey to John Edmundson :

"Declares his complaint true but that defendant is a tenant of the abbot of Cristall [sic] & lives in his ten[emen]t & there was an old ordinance that the abbot should hold no more than 4 tenements which the abbot had in possession for surcharging the Kynge's commons pastures and woods & the abbot & his successors have within 40 years bilded 8 others so that he now has 12 & takes housbote(3) & heybote(4) in the kynge's woddes & John dwells in one of them late bilded and misuseth himself in comyng to the comen pasture. However Sir John Hoddelston was baily and fermour in 2 yere of K. Richard & suffered him and Xpher Diconson to have the winter crop of the Parke for 32s and the complainant took the farm I Henry VII. & allowed them to occupy it ne they did not know its true value. They are supported by, Sir Edwd Stanley and Sir Thomas Tempest as tenants at will instead of at the pleasure of the fermor."

It would appear from this that, as stated in a previous chapter of this book,(5) the possessions of Kirkstall in Barnoldswick had been still further reduced after the royal appropriation of Admergill. The following extract from a Rent Roll of Kirkstall Abbey, given in Vol. 11. (Miscellanea) of the Publications of the Thoresby Society seems to prove that only a small portion, in that part of Barnoldswick called Coates, remained in their hands :

“The accompte of brother Robert Marie in the Bursar's office from the feast of Pentecost Anno Domini 1459 unto the same ffeast in the yeare following. The same Answerwth for Arrerage (6) as appeareth in the yeare past.

Received of Ferme at Will.

Coites at Will . . . And of XII li XXd Rec -Of the Lord's tenantes in Barnoldsweke Coites by a Rentall examoned."

and “IIs VId” is given as received of "John Tempest, knight, there by rent service."

If we have not quite exhausted the patience of our readers with these records of ancient feuds and quarrels in our midst, here are one or two more extracts which relate to Henry Pudsey's rule as king's steward in the royal manor of Barnoldswick :

"Answer of Henry Pudsey the elder to the informacion made by the King's tenauntes of Barnaldeswyke and Richard Tempest, Esq. for old malice for as much as the seyd household servauntes of the seyd Tempest on Ashe Wednesday last passed slew an officer to the Kinge's grace called Robert Sothron at Barnaldeswyke under keper of the Kynge's wodes there & Bayly of the seyd towne. But for declaration of the Trouthe the seyd Henry seieth that he ys fermor to the king's grace there and also Forster of the wodes & as such hath tyme out of mynde to his proper use wyndfallen wode within the seyd Lordshyppe."

Henry again :

"Petition of Henry Pudsey who holdeth the lese of the Lordshippe. Now divers simple persons viz. [here follow 13 names] with 20 persons or more of which company some had visors & with craft hidd their visages entered the parke and brake down the hegges putt in theyr owne cattell have driven oute your beseecher's cattel and violently and despitefully cutt of the flesh markes to the hurte and rebuke of your beseecher and put him to such costes charges and losses he cannot pay his rent."

And one more, a later echo of the old controversy

"Petition of Thomas Banester that 40 years since great varyaunces sue and controversie was hadde between Henry Pudsey Fermoure of the Lordship of Barnoldswike & the customary tenants because he would constraine them by unreasonable fynes or els expel theyme & the tenauntes offered to pay £8 rent of increse if they might queyethlie have holde & enjoie their tenements & they so enjoyed them until of late one Laurence Habergen hath made a lease of a tenement called Brockden now in the tenure of the said orator worth £8 by which lease he hath discharged orator wherein his ancestors have dwelt for 200 years and more and demands £400 if he be let stay."

V.

One relating to a rather different matter. Richard Tempest states:

“He has been fermor of the wapentake of Staynesclyffe & payeth xx markes yearly and hath been usyd to kepe letes and hold shireffes courts .... for which the king's fermor hath been usyd to pay VIs VIIId & a dyner piece a noble besides or ells a noble which amounted in all the Lord ships to 10 marks, now Henry Pudsey fermor of the Lordships of Remington in which manor the Baily and fermor have kept a lete time out of mind & had 6s 8d besides . . . [MS indecipherable] and in default of a dyner 6s 8d and Henry was behind 5 years ending Michaelmas 24 Henry VII for the said dyner i e 33s 4d Richard distreyned him in his goodes in consequence."

The Henry Pudsey who plays so conspicuous a part in this drama of life in old Barnoldswick was the son of Sir John Pudsey, or Pudsay, Knight, of Bolton-by-Bowland, and of Grace (nee Hammerton) his wife. He married Margaret, daughter of Sir John Conyers, of Hornby Castle, as his first wife, and had a numerous family. One of his sons, Ralph, married a Tempest of Bracewell, and so, we may hope, helped to heal the feud which seems to have existed between the two families in Henry's time. Another of his descendants in the reign of Queen Elizabeth attained considerable notoriety as the originator of the “Pudsey shillings," and only escaped with his life by obtaining the Queen's pardon. Those who wish to know more about this, and about the family and its connection with the Pudseys of Settle, and through them with the Percies, will find, as usual, a fund of information in Whitaker's “History of Craven.” No doubt the famous township of Pudsey, near Leeds, birthplace of a modern hero of "Test Matches," derives its name from this family. Before we quit this period of our history it may be of interest to note that a certain Vicar of Barnoldswick in 1361 appears to have fallen into bad company, being led away by love of “venerie" like the monk in Chaucer's "Tales." Here is the story, told in an old parchment :

“1361 Oct. 26 at Westminster: Commission of Oyer and Terminer to John Moubray, etc., etc. : Complaint by the kynge's son Edmund de Langele that .... John de Radclyf parson of the church of Bury Robert de Cliderhowe John del Holt of Salforthshire .... Robert that was the monkesservant of Bernelswyke chaplain .... John parson of the church of Bramworth .... broke his parkes and closes and entered his free warrens .... hunted in the warrens and in his free chases cut down his trees fished in his several fisheries dug- in his several turbaries and carried away the turves thrown up his fish trees and other goods and took and carried away deer from his parks and chaces and hares conies and partridges from the warrens."

We may infer from this that however much of the manor of Barnoldswick the monks had lost in the middle of the 14th century, they retained the advowson of the church (St. Mary-le-Gill), with the right of appointing “the chaplain."

37

CHAPTER X.

The Court of the Manor in Tudor Times and
a Tale of "the Belles."

THE records of the Duchy of Lancaster contain the following, amongst other, notes of transactions concerning Barnoldswick in the reigns of Henry VIII. and his successors.

Sixty-seven persons were amerced, but their offences are not stated. As the population cannot have been more than three hundred or so, 67 is a large proportion of law-breakers, but most of the offences were probably very trivial. For example, it is recorded that Thomas Baxter and Christopher Ratclyff and Thos. Elles were fined for "not making, a sufficient way in le streit at Westfield; and Christopher Parker and Richard Dyconson were similarly fined for cutting and carrying away "browse" from the Wools.

2-In the following year (1537-1538) two courts were held, and in one, held –“Saturday after St. Thomas M.” (July 13th) Margaret, widow of William Watson, and Alice Monke were fined: “Rich. Botheman surrendered his tenement to the use of Christopher Michell, and Thomas Baxter surrendered to the use of Richard his son.”

3-In 32 Henry VIII. (1541) the jury of the manor court was composed of the following gentlemen: Rich. Banaster sen., John Campest gent., Rich. Wait of le haye, Rich. Edmundson, Rich. Atkynson, Thos. Lovecocke, John Boteridge Esq., Christ. Parker, Rich. Edmundson, Rich. Baxter, Christ. Brockleden, Will. Ellez, George Kyrke, John Alaide, Christ. Edmundson, and Thos. Ellez, sen. Among those "amerced" at this court were Sir Thomas Tempest and Rich. Tempest Esq., John Dylworth and John Edmundson fined for lopping underwood, and Rich. Dylworth for cutting down an "oak sapplyng."

4.-1542, 1st May, with a jury composed of Rich. Banaster sen., John Tempest of the Rane, Christ. Parker jun., Christ. Edmundson, William Ellez, Rich. Baxter, Rich. West, Rich. Edmundson, Rich. Atkynson, Robt. Dylworth and Christ. Brockden, John Edmundson and Rich. Dyconson [both evidently hardened offenders] were fined for "cutting down branches of trees in le browse” ; William Stoddart and Elizabeth relict of Christ. ,Grantusimull" made an affray (bothe fined)" ; George Brocksden trespassed with his animals; George Edmundson "invaded the land called le Stagges on the moor" and raised turves and sold them without licence.

5.-There is also proof that the methods adopted by Henry Pudsey and his contemporaries for vindicating rights supposed or real had their users also in a later day. Here is a plaint from Barnoldswick in 1580:

“Petition of Wm. Emetson [probably= Edmundson] re Moore Close: Now Sir Xpher Parker, Wm. Thos., and John Parker of Barnoldswick by force and armed with “daggers long pykes and staves entered the said close the 4th May finding Bartholomew Edmundson a young stripling, orator's son, beat hurte and wounded him and hadde slayne him iff one Thomas Murgatroyde and Robt. Bewe servants of Robt. Tempest gent: hadde not reskewed him . . . . who did hurte and strike Robt Bewe and hadde almost slayne him."

6.-And here is evidence of another dispute, or it may be the same one on a larger scale :

"Michael Lyster of Brockeden in the Lordship of Barnoldswick gent., Allen Edmundson the younger, yeoman, Wm. Brockden of Barnoldswick, yeoman, Rich. Lacocke, yeoman, of Barnoldswick tenants of the queene's majestee anent common rights of Blacke Brooke : The tenants had the right as far as Waules [Wanless? SCG] water running between the manors of Colne and Fowlerigge and right to haule turves and depasture their cattle on the waste called Whyt Moore and now a dispute is in court between Henry Banester and other tenants of Foulerigge Complainants and Robt Tempest and the tenants of Barnoldswick concerning the occupation of the waste called Whit Moor and both manors claim the right."

As we read this we seem to be back in the days of Henry de Lacy, and of the great law suit.

7.-Nor were the disputes confined to one side of the manor only, otherwise we might have thought them lingering remnants of the immemorial feuds between Yorks and Lancs. At the other side of the parish also we find a dispute going on about the rights of the inhabitants of Marton to "turbary" in Barnoldswick. This belongs to the reign of Edward VI.: [1547-1553]

"Writ of the King to Wm. Mallowe and Christopher Masefeilde gent. and John Aspeden clerk to call the tenants of Merton to enquire into a turbary in Barnoldswick and the rents thereof and what has been builded on the waste and now in occupation of Rich. Ellis, Christopher Edmundson, John Hudson and others and what rent is paid and what is the rent of divers closes in tenure of Xpher Stodert . . . Bracewell Tho. Parker, Rich. Edmundson, Rich. Lowcocke and Harry Stodert. The King is informed that £16 0s. 6d. was given to the use of a churche called Gyll churche beyng parcell of the Duchye. They are to enquire whether it was so given”

8 -About the church money more later. Here is another about the turbary : made before Clarence Towneley, Wm. Malam., Xpher Mesiford, gent and John Assedone clerk.

John Grene of West Marton says the tenants have always had turbary in Barnoldswick paying the deputy bailiff yearly afore 6 Edw. 6, for each wayne 6d. & carte 3d. & the tenants received this.

John Smyth of same agrees.

Christopher Edmundson depute bayliffe of Barnoldswick aged 50 tenant of John Tempest Kt sayd the tenants of Est Marton, Bracewell, Gysburne, Myddoppe and others had turbary in the manor of Barnoldswick and the tenants of Barnoldswick leased their fermes for 21 years for turbary and of the sum received about 26s. 8d. the tenants of Marton paid 8s. 9d, and he received the sum as wages bill. That the house of Xpher Ellis was built on the waste he pays no rent. He himself 5 years since built a house on the waste and pays nothing. He knows a close in occupation of Rich. Wilkynson taken from the waste ; that Rich. Verley built a house on the waste & Roger Blakebrooke has enclosed land from it.

Richard Ellys of Saltersforth aged 40 by leave of John Tempest built a house and barn on the waste & that Rich. Lowcocke and Xpher Ellis disseised him.

Thomas Welles of Saltersforth aged 50 says that a house and garth was taken and enclosed by one John Hudson 36 years since.

George Ellis, of Saltersforth deposes to the same.
[More to the same effect.]

Thomas Dauncer of Gysborne tenant to Sir Arthur Darcy says Gysborn had the same right (1), and further that Thomas Banaster objected as he had that part of the moor tenanted to him.

9,-Letters Patent of 2-3 Philip and Mary granting Sir John Tempest, knight, William Lyster Esq., Christopher Kirke and Christopher Bracewell a lease of the common.

1 i.e. of turbary.

"There hath been much variaunce of late in the court of the Duchy between the tenants of Barnoldswick and the inhabitants of the hamlet of Cotes respecting the rights of pasturage and turbary on Barnoldswick moor. It has been agreed to assign 40 acres of the moor to Cotes for all title and claim thereto hitherto made.

Now the Crown lease to the above named parties all the portion of moor assigned to Barnoldswick and others whose names are in a sedule annexed. For 21 years at £6 13s 4d rent yearly."

So much for the "variaunces" about turbary rights, and the sly little annexations of the “waste"(i.e., the uncultivated land used for rough pasture) which made local life interesting in the days when Raleigh and Drake were enlarging the world and "singeing the Spaniards' beards," and Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and others were being burnt at the stake.

10.-We must follow a little further the matter of the funds of "Gyll Churche":

“John Edmundson aged 64 & Wm. Ellys & John Wayte of Barnoldswick aged 60 and Thos. Lawcocke were churchwardens 18 years since and Wade says that they had in hand of the goods of the said church £17 10 which they delivered to .... Edmundson and Rich. Dyconson of Saltersforth deceased and Xpher Edmundson late of the Parke deceased then churchwardens.

John Edmundson says the sum was £11 12 4.

Will. Ellis does not know how much it was.

Nycholas Edmundson aged 60 and more churchwarden said the sum was above £12.

Henry Stoddart says the sum of £4 except a cowe was delivered to Richard Wayte how much the cowe stood for he does not know he thinks about 13s. 4d. He saith the steeple wyndows have been glazed and others repaired.

XPher Brockdone aged 60 says he was churchwarden 16 years since and had in hand £3.6.8. & delivered it to Thos. Ellys deceased.

Richard Wayte of Barnoldswick says he and Richard Wayte of the Heigg, Christopher Parker and Thos. Ellis were church wardens and had £3.

John Edmundson of Barnoldswick says he received 53s. and spent it on glasying windows & messyng of the same 19s, 6s 6d for lead & 12d at visitation and other visitations.

The parishioners of Gill Churche commonly repeated that Thos Banaster borrowed the money of Richard Ellys and .... John Edmundson of the barne.

John Halson [?] of Saltersforth aged 68 says there was £30 in the hands of John Wayte called John Edmundson of the Close, William .... and the late Thomas Lawcocke 18 years last past and given to a poore feller of the paryshe for to have bought belles which were for the use of the churche but what became of it he knows not."

We pity the judge or jury that had to sift this bewildering conflict of evidence! The discrepancies of the varying statements may, however, be partly explained if it be borne in mind that there appear to have been then, as there are now, four wardens of Gill Church (one for each of the three townships of the parish, viz., Barnoldswick, Salterforth and Brogden, and a vicar's warden) ; and that the responsibility of expending the church money was divided between them. The reference to the cow is interesting and shows that gifts in kind (not to say kine!) were given. Cardinal Gasquet, in his book "Parish Life in Mediaeval England," quotes several such instances. The cows were mostly let out on hire., The entrusting of so large a sum as £30 to a "poore feller of the paryshe" and the non-appearance of the "belles" are amazing features of the story, if true. The money, like the "poore feller,"' appears to have vanished.

1. e.g. The wardens of Woodchurch, in Cheshire, were left by will of Mr. James Godyker 20 marks wherewith to buy 20 bullocks to be rented (as beasts of burden) for the purpose of paying a curate. In another instance four cows, valued 10s. each, were leased out at 2s. apiece. A still more curious form of gift or legacy was a hive of bees !

CHAPTER XI.

Some Leases and Other Legal Documents.

THERE are a number of deeds relating to leases amongst the Duchy of Lancaster records of Barnoldswick manor. They are too numerous to be given here, but a few specimens may be of interest.

One of the most interesting is a lease 22 May 2-3 Philip and Mary [1555-1556] to Sir John Tempest, knight, "to digg for seacoles within the manor for 30 years." Coal had been found in Blackburnshire 300 years earlier as we learn from the "Compotus" of Bolton Priory for the year 1324.(1) Sir John's search may have met with some success, for in an Inquisition taken at the Castle of York 20 Sept. 20 Jas. 1[1603-1604] the following record is made : "Firmar miner carbonu et slate stones infra manor de Barnoldeswick ad XVIs. VIIId. p. annu insolut ptribus." The "slate stones" are likely to have provided the larger part of this not very rich reward to the miner. We may regard it as a blessing or not, according to our viewpoint, that no coal in workable quantities has been found on the Yorkshire side of the county border in the area round Barnoldswick.

Here are some others :

"Lease to John Lister of "a tenement in Barnoldswick called Hadmargill now in the tenure of Alexander Hartley, Nicholas Blakey, and Christopher Hunson, and another tenement now or late in the tenure of Christopher Mitchell with the woods and underwoods .... at a rent of £4. 0. 8, viz. for the former 64s. and for the latter 16s. 8d."(2)

This agreement, however, was subsequently cancelled by John and he Admergill tenements reverted to their former owners.

"Grant to John Tempest, knight, on surrender of a lease of 15 February 1548 of a tenement in Barnoldswick called Grenehill with its land, a pasture called Cowepasture, and the Newe Close. Paying for Grenehill £6.6.9½ for Cowepasture 119s. 4d. and Newe Close £4 18s."

Re-granted after fine of £240 for 99 years. 16 June 1558.

"Lease to Christopher Elles sen. citing lease of 28 April 1548 for 21 years to Alice Elles, widow, and Richard Elles of lands and a pasture called Calfall at 23s 3d rent. Richard died seised(3) and left the remainder to Christopher his brother who made entry and surrendered in exchange for a lease of 99 years paying £240 for fine."

"Lease to John Botheman, Richard Botheman, John Dillworth and Elizabeth Dilworth relict of Robert Dilworth, Thomas Wells and Thomas Parker, citing lease of 27 April 1548, called Shene in tenure of Robert, a parcell. of le Heigh Close in the tenure of Thomas Wells and demised 2 June 1548 to Thomas Parker in Saltford for 21 years at 49s. 2d., viz., for John Botheman 8s 11d Thomas Wells 5s 11d. Robert Dilworth 11s 3d Thomas Wells 5s 11d, etc."

Robert Dilworth died and left his interest to John Dilworth and Elizabeth his wife, who surrendered and are re-granted a lease for 99 years, paying £240. 16 June, 1558.
In another class of documents, that known as the "Feet of Fines," we also find deeds relating to Barnoldswick. We may explain for the sake of those not learned in these matters, that the "Fine" here meant is not a monetary payment but a final agreement between parties with regard to lands or rents or similar matters. It had five parts, the last of which is the "Foot" of “the Fine." This was the official summary of the agreement, and was cut off along an indented line (from which comes the word "indenture") and retained by the court which gave the parties the licence of the Crown to their agreement (no agreement was regarded as valid without the royal consent). For this "licentia con cordandi" a payment called "the King's Silver" was made. Sometimes the parties to an agreement for the transfer of lands tried to evade the payment of the King's Silver and to conclude a private covenant without the licence of the court. They were not, as a rule, successful, eg., John Hammerton and Nicholas Middleton are charged with purchasing, without licence, of John Banester a "capital messuage, parcel of the manor of Barnoldswick in Craven which is held 'in capite' " ; for which offence, however, they are granted the queen's [i.e., Queen Elizabeth] pardon.

In the Feet of Fines for 1566 we come across the following which may serve as an example:-The "Plaintiffs" [i.e., those applying for the estate which they have bought, are William Mason and Ralph Bankes ; the "Deforciants" [i.e., the present owners, or occupiers, who are technically supposed to be keeping the plaintiffs out of their estate] are John Hartley and Margaret his wife, Barnand [so spelt first time] Hartley their son and heir apparent, and Edward Hurst and Ann his wife. The lands in question are described as “A third part of 4 messuages and a cottage- with land in Barnoldswick and Gylkyrke to be held to Barnard [so, second time] and Elizabeth his wife for their lives, and on their decease to the lawful issue of Barnard, and failing such to the lawful issue of John Hartley." Licence is issued for the transference of this estate to the plaintiffs.

Strange vagaries in spelling still continue to haunt the scribes or clerks who drew up these documents. Coates is often given as “Cootes-in- Craven." Gylkyrke is another variant. But perhaps. the strangest of all is "Barnoldswykcotes" which can hardly be outdone in Wales !

Whitaker, in his History, informs us that in the time of Queen Elizabeth, Ralph Banester was a principal landowner in Barnoldswick-Cotes, holding there “ten messuages, ten tofts, ten gardens, 200 acres of land, 100 acres of meadow, and 200 of pasture of the Queen in capite by the 40th part of a knight's fee." But I venture to think that he is inaccurate in his statement that this part of Barnoldswick manor belonged to Sawley Abbey, and was granted with the other estates of this House to Arthur Darcy by two charters in the 35th and 37th years of Henry VIII's reign. Darcy did, indeed, receive various possessions of Sawley, including Gisburn manor ; and with them he received an estate in Coates which, however, was confiscated land of Kirkstall Abbey, not of Sawley. For in 1553, January 30, a licence was given by King Edward VI., on payment of 28s., "to Arthur Darcy, knight, to grant his messuages and lands in Cotys in Craven in Gilkyrke parish, Yorks,, late of Kyrkestall, monastery, Yorks, to Richard Bonaster his heirs and assigns.”

The charters referred to by Whitaker are probably ones bearing date 1544 and 1545, the first of which grants in fee for 424 li. 17s. 6d. to Sir Arthur Darcy "the King's servant" : Nappaye manor, Yorks., St. Leonard's "hospital" in York, "with appurtenances in Gisbourne in Craven," Gargrave, Kildewike, Skipton, etc. ; also a tenement, etc., in tenure of Ric. Banester jun. of Cotes in Craven, lying in Cotes in the parish of Gilkirke Yorks. The second one, in August 1545 grants to Sir Arthur several Welsh possessions of Selby Abbey, and renews or reaffirms the grant of “a messuage and lands in Cotes in Craven in Gilkyrk parish, Yorks., in tenure of Ric. Banaster . . . lately belonging, to Kyrkstall monastery."(3) Whitaker's copy may not have contained these last words ; or he may not have noticed them. In October, 1545, "Lands in tenure of John Edmundson, Alan Edmondson, Ric. Waytes, Alice Ellys, Thos. Hudson, George Hudson, John Waytes, sen. and jun. and John Hobson in Cotes alias Barlewik Cotes in Cravyn in Gilkyrk parish Yorks." are granted to William Romesden of Longley, Yorks., Ralph Wyse of Redehouse, Yorks., and John and Roger Wise his sons.(4) Amongst the signatures to this deed are those of Gardiner and Petre. John Banester, father of the Richard Banester mentioned above, had married Isabel Popely, and divorced her in 1486, and the king issued a commission to

Edward, Archbishop of York, to obtain evidence on the validity of the divorce, as it affected Richard's title to lands, etc., of which "Barlewike" is named as one, also Colne, "Folrigge," etc.

The Banester family was an ancient one in Barnoldswick and had occupied Brogden Hall for at least a century and a half before these transactions. One of the daughters of a previous Richard Banester, in the reign of Henry IV, married Laurence Lyster, second son of John Lyster, of Barnoldswick and Middop, who was son of Richard Lyster, of Derby.,

An altercation in which Sir Arthur Darcy engaged with Sir John Tempest, of Bracewell, about a right of way and the ownership of Heskett “waste" is recorded in the records of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society.

"Thanswere (2) of Sir John Tempest, knyght, to the byll of complaynt of Sir Arthur Darcy, knyght ....

Ye said tenauntes and inhabytantes of Gisborne have made one yate and had one weye through ye same [Heskett] ledying to the Lordship of Bernoldswik and other places there adioynyng."

Sir Arthur, in his "Replication" to this "answere," refuses to admit the right of way. "Heskett waste" was "a parcell of waste grounde contaynyng 100 acres of land" and adjoined Gisburn waste. (3)

In the year 1539 a muster was made of "archers and others on horse and foot ... in the wapentake of Staynclif commonly called Craven and in the forest of Boolande thereto adjoining, W.R. Yorks., before Sir Thos. Tempest, of Bracewell, and John Lambart, of Calton, commissioners thereto assigned."

"Barnaldesweke" (sic) mustered 71 men, and Skipton 110. The household servants of Sir Thomas numbered 20 men, five of them armed with spears.

We have traced, as well as we could, the history of our town and parish from very early days down to the closing years of the 16th century. The records given in the last two or three chapters of this book will perhaps have seemed dry or difficult to many of its readers, but they are of some value to the historian ; and may also interest local readers who will recognise the names of their own forbears, and see them figuring with credit, or, it may have to be owned with occasional discredit in the episodes there chronicled. It has been a temptation to the writer to break off into moralising on some of the scenes of life in Barnoldswick in olden days ; and a still greater temptation to weave into the story the history of the wider world outside our town. But the temptation has been resisted, however hardly, because of the desire to keep this volume within moderate compass, and of a moderate price. We may, however, digress just for one moment to record the last stages of the history of the great Abbey with which Barnoldswick was for so long connected. In the days when Henry VIII. was king, the revival of literature and the spread of learning coincided with a policy of state largely, though not wholly, dictated by the desires and lusts of an absolute monarch, to bring vast changes in the religious outlook of England, and especially to bring about the down fall of the monasteries. The monks, with rare exceptions, would have nothing to do with the new learning. They were "lovers of darkness," so their enemies declared, unfortunately with too much truth. Green, the historian, writes of them :

"Most of their houses were anxious only to enlarge their revenues, and to diminish the number of those who shared them. In the general carelessness which prevailed as to the religious objects of their trusts, in the wasteful management of their estates, in the indolence and self-indulgence which for the most part characterised them, the monastic bodies simply exhibited the faults of all corporate bodies which have outlived the work which they were created to perform."'

The lesser monasteries were the first to suffer confiscation. In the year 1532 the Pope himself had by a Papal Bull given authority to Henry to suppress certain monasteries for the purpose of creating bishoprics. Even earlier than this no less a churchman than Cardinal Wolsey had contemplated, if he had not actually carried into effect some such measure. In 1536 all monasteries under the annual value of £200 were suppressed. The larger Abbeys, of which Kirkstall was one, were allowed to remain for a few years longer, and were even given honourable mention

1. Short History of the English People. P.333

in “The Black Book" laid before Parliament, recommending the suppression of the smaller ones as hotbeds of profligacy and crime.

The surrender of Kirkstall took place November 22nd, 1540. Its last Abbot, John Ripley, alias Browne, was allowed to remain in the lodge over the gateway of the Abbey, and to end his days there. In 1542 the site of the Abbey was granted to Archbishop Cranmer as part of an exchange of lands made between him and the king. Its great estates, confiscated to the king, were granted away by him to friends and favourites, or sold for “a consideration"; and as we have seen the moiety of them that remained in Barnoldswick passed to Sir Arthur Darcy. The tithes and advowson of the Church (Gilkirk), however, remained in royal hands for some time longer ; as did also the manor which the monastery had lost in the days of Edward III.

Thus barons and kings, popes and prelates, quarrelled and fought and the noise of their strife occasionally broke in upon the peace of these secluded and rural districts. Then, as now, Barnoldswick was “Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite beyond it" ; its people could watch the pageant flaunt by, and now and again, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, had some minor part to play in it. But for the most part the centuries rolled on, touching with but light pressure the lives of the men and women who ate and drank, married and were given in marriage, played and toiled, wept and laughed in these Yorkshire Dales, where, nevertheless, was being reared a race which should help to make England great. The peasants who could not-and probably would not if they could-remove like the monks to safer and serener habitations, still struggled on in despite of the "importunities of the rains" and the frequent forays of the Scots, to keep their own bodies and souls together and to supply grain and butter and game and ale and wool at first to the Monastery and afterwards to the King's stewards. Their wretched hovels of mud and timber would gradually be replaced by better buildings of stone ; and windows and chimneys would begin to appear in the more pretentious.(1) But the "oxgangs" of eight bullocks would still be used to draw the rough ploughs of wood. No fences divided up the common pasture lands, where all the flocks and herds fed and roamed together, tended by shepherds and herdsmen whose wages in the time of Edward I. were one halfpenny a day.

1. Yet it may half a century or more later before they did so. "In building and furniture of their houses till of late years they used the old manner of the Saxons ; for they had their fire in the midst of their house, against a hob of clay, and their oxen under the same roof, but within these forty years they have builded chimneys " So runs an old work published in 1656 relating to Cheshire. Yorkshire is not likely to have been more forward, at least in the Dales.

CHAPTER XIII.

In the Days of the Stuarts.

THE Manor of Barnoldswick remained a royal possession as part of the Duchy of Lancaster and, it appears, of the Honour of Tickhill, all through the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. In the Duchy records for the year 1619 we find a copy of a grant made by Sir Henry Hobart, knight, Chief Justice, and Chancellor, to Charles, Prince of Wales, and others, reciting inter alia that "he said Prime being possessed . . . of the house or manor of Barnoldswick grants by warrant to John Concliffe, gent., the office of bailiff of the said manor and the office of collector of rents there."(1)

A MS. in the British Museum which, I think, has not yet been printed anywhere, makes mention of Barnoldswick amongst other royal manors, and re-grants it to Edward Ditchfield, John Heighlord, Humphrey Clarke, and Francis Mosse. I venture to give it here, with apologies if I thereby infringe any copyright.

Exemplification of a final concord in the court of Common Pleas. Hilary 4 Charles I (2). The King querent: Edward Ditchfield, John Heighlord. Humphrey Clarke and Francis Mosse deforciants of the manors of Olney, Bucks., Matlock, Spounden, Chaddesden, Duffield, Beaureper, Holbrooke, Southwood, Heighedge, Erichey, Holland, Biggin, with appurtenances in and the park of Beaureper, 43 messuages, 30 cottages, 43 barns, 30 stables, 4 dovecots, 43 gardens, 43 orchards, 1100 acres of arable, 420 of meadow, 1640 of pasture, 60 acres of wood, 500 of mane, Common rights, common of turbary, and a free fishery in Wirksworth, Perwich, Hatton, High Peak, Kersington and Brassington, co. Derby. The manors of Deghall, Marthden, Campsall, Roundhay, Acworth, Credlinge, Knottingley, Allerton, Elmeshall, Rothwell, Scoles, Kippax, Leeds, Barwicke-in-Elmett, BARNOLDSWICK, Bradford, Roweliffe, Scryven, Aldburgh, Essingwold, and Laughton with appurtenances, and the park of Havera, 100 acres of arable, 20 acres of meadow, 60 of pasture, 20 of wood, in Slateborne and Bowland, co. York; and the manors of Mondenhall, Dunmowe and Langham, and the site of the manor of High Chester, etc., etc.

The deforciants recognize the right of the querent and quitclaim for themselves and their heirs. Querent regrants to Edward and his heirs in perpetual fee farm, to hold of the King as of his manor of Endfield by fealty, in free and common soccage and not in chief. Warranty as by statute of 12 Feb. 4 Chas. [1628-1629] (3)

“Royal Warrant to the Attorney or Solicitor General to prepare a bill for settling upon the Queen Consort 1236L 16s 1 ½ d. per an. to be paid out of the hereditary Excise quarterly; as representing the value of fee farm rents in the schedule below being part of the said Queen's jointure, but the reversion of which after her life has been purchased by Viscount Latimer from the Trustees for the sale of Fee Farms ; but the possession of which is at the King’s desire to be vested and granted by the said Queen to Vere Bertie and Arthur Fleetwood for the use of the said Viscount Latimer as a gratification from the King to him, viz., the fee farms of the places as follow--

[Various]

The manor of Barnoldswick 80 16 2 ½ .”

The Queen Consort was Catherine of Braganza, Infanta of Portugal. After Queen lsabella's struggles, narrated in an earlier chapter, to claim the manor of Barnoldswick as hers of right it is interesting to find another Queen in possession of it so many centuries later.

Barnoldswick Cotes had passed to the Drakes soon after 1600. One of them, Thomas Drake, was Rector of Thornton-in-Craven 1623 to 1668. His son, William Drake, was J.P. in 1667 ; and two other Williams, son and grandson, of this William, held the Cotes estate. The latter, born at Cotes 21st September, 1682, was churchwarden of Gill Church in 1723, when the bells were hung in the tower ; probably they were a gift from him. He died in 1757, and was buried in the chancel of the church. Cotes Hall was the subject of a drawing made about 1718 by the artist, John Warburton, whose sketches of Yorkshire manorial homes acquired some fame. The Hall still remains, though not in its full ancient magnificence and may be seen on the left as one enters Barnoldswick from Skipton.

1 Cal. of Treasury Books, Vol. IV, p. 542.

CHAPTER XIV.

The Church Registers.

AT the period which we have now reached another kind of document becomes available to aid us ii our researches. into the ancient history of the parish. This consists of the Church Registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths. The earliest registers were made in 1538 by order of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's minister and "Vicar General." Many of the ancient. churches of the land possess registers going back to that date ;. but the Gill Church registers now extant do not begin until some fifty years later, to be exact in 1587. There may have been earlier ones covering the period 1538 to 1587 ; but if so they are now lost. The extant registers are very defective in the earlier years, the oldest of all consisting only of a few tattered and mutilated leaves. Several of the others have been badly damaged with a brown gall stain used by some decipherer to make them more legible in the first instance, but which has alas! irretrievably ruined and rendered them indecipherable now in many places. Luckily, before this mishap befell them, a former Vicar of Barnoldswick, the Rev. Mordaunt Barnard, had partly copied them, as far as he could, the worst blanks being between 1650 and 1670; and the work of copying was continued by the Rev. Samuel Ireson (Vicar 1870-1879) and by a later hand down to 1786 (partially). Some of the burials (1587 to 1628) were printed in the Parish Magazine in 1924 and 1925 ; I do not think that any others have appeared in print. Most parishes possessing ancient registers have had them printed, generally by the aid freely given by various archaeological societies ; it would be well if the Gill records also could be preserved in this way, but for financial reasons I fear that it will not be possible unless some friendly person or society comes to our aid.

In the registers we find names occurring with which we have already become familiar through the records given in previous chapters of this book, e.g., Ellis, Baxter, Banister, "gent. of Cotes" (1587), Locock and Lowcock, Munch and Munches (also spelt Monks on a tombstone in the churchyard, date 1641 Dickenson, and, of course, Edmundson. We also find an entry regarding Tempest, "of Raine" or "Rane" ; but whether this family was connected with the Tempests of Bracewell, etc., is not to be discovered from the records. Other names also, both of places and of persons, stir our curiosity or our interest as we note them. There is, for example, the worthy gentleman who rejoiced in the name of Bezaleel Houlgate, and whose daughter Jane was baptised in 1627. We wonder whether he was a craftsman, and possessed the skill of his namesake in the book of Exodus. "Blackey in Colne" is no doubt the modern Blacko. Letcliffe as a place name is fairly frequent, and Letcliffe Top occurs once or twice. Coverden is found for Coverdale. We are informed of the burial in 1652 of Joseph Thompson, “son of Mr. Amara Thompson, minister of God's Word" ; and a baptism is recorded in 1662 of another son (apparently) of the same reverend gentleman whose name is, however, this time given, or copied (the original is wholly illegible) as "Avara Thompson, clark." [Alvery Thompson, Baptist minister. See Lewis; Hist of the Baptists in Barnoldswick] The family of Hartley, which is now a numerous and widespread one in Barnoldswick, had close connections with Gill Church if one entry which is copied as " Sarah Hartley of Gill Church" buried in 1616, is correct. Another Sarah Hartley, 'Daughter of John of the Gill," is mentioned as being buried in 1622. The name Ellinthorpe occurs more than once as a personal name, and leads to the conjecture that the family came from the Elwinthorpe of which we have already heard as a place name. Eanams and Heancholmes are variants which represent the modern Aynhams. In 1678 the following note occurs in the register: "Burials within ye parish of Barnoldswicke which were buried in woollen according to a late Act of parliament, an Act for burying in woollen within ye yeare of ye Lord God 1687 registered by me Timothy Lancaster present minister.”

The Act referred to was one passed to encourage woollen manufacture in this country, requiring that all corpses should be interred in woollen shrouds ; and an affidavit that this had been done had to be sworn by the person conducting the funeral. So in that and some subsequent years we have entries such as this : "John ye Son of John Baldwin of Barnolsewicke Cotes buried in wollen ye 21 day of September @ affidavit brought to me for ye same ye twentie eight day"

After the burials registered in 1680 there is a note which reads : - the following years were neglected and ye names lost for christening and burs. 81 and 82." Evidence that this neglect lasted for a longer period than 1681 and 1682 is seen in the records of marriages, which are curiously jumbled up, those for 1674 being given in two parts of the book, one following an entry for 1671 ; 1689 following 1684 (one marriage only is entered for that year) and being followed by 1683 ; none being entered for 1686; and various other sins of disorder being apparent. The Baptisms are similarly jumbled, and some are erased. The reason for this in no doubt, to be sought in the disturbed condition of the country in those eventful years, the plots and counter-plots of Charles II's reign, the Monmouth rebellion, and the final revolution against James II which brought about the downfall of the Stuart Dynasty in 1688.

The religious quarrels of the time are reflected in the parochial registers in another way. In the year 1705 and several following ones there are separate entries of the baptisms and birthdays of Dissenters-spelt "Decenters" and "Desenters"-a token of the abatement of the old prejudices which had refused baptism to the children of non-conformists in the days of the Stuarts. So also
in 1707 we find the record of the burial of "Martha Ellis of the parish of Broughton buried at the Quakers Sepulcar in Salterforth May the 16th" ; and a similar entry in 1708 of the burial of "Margret Hartley" in this "Sepulcar." Still more interesting is the marriage recorded in 1704 of "William Houlte and Ann Hartley, both of this parish. Married at the Quakers' Meeting House June
ye 15th day." One Mr. Alvery Jackson appears to have been “a Minister of Dissenters" here in 1719, for in that year there is the record of the burial of an unnamed son of his. After 1700 the occupations of those who received the Church's ministrations are recorded now and again, and we find "clothier," "skinner," “shopkeeper," "a soldier disbanded and a wanderer (1728)." and fairly frequently "teacher" or ' school-master." The above-mentioned Mr. Avery Jackson, "of Wood End," lost his wife Tamar in 1726, and in the entry of her burial he is described as "a teacher." not as before as "a minister" ; no doubt he combined both occupations. In 1703 a son of John Bradshaw, "of
Dye House," was baptised. Does this show that dyeing had become a local industry here early in the 18th century? Sixty years later one Wm. Proctor is described as a "woolcomber" Other entries record the burial of "an old widow," and (in the same year) “an ancient widow." What was the difference we wonder, between old" and "ancient"? Cotes Hall is mentioned in 1687, 1708, and again in 1738, when "Hannah Clough, Gentlewoman,, of Cotes Hall ' " was buried. In 1746 we have mention of one Wm. Hartley, 'Formerly of Hesket” recalling to mind the dispute between Tempest and Darcy. Some of the handwriting even in the oldest of the registers is extraordinarily clear, legible and beautiful, especially that of Parson Thomas Garfoot, Incumbent 1671 to 1678 ; if indeed, it is his and was not done for him by some clerk or churchwarden ; one entry signed by him, and evidently his own, is not so well written.

Before we leave the registers our readers may be interested to know that the total baptisms from 1587 to 1825 number 5 028, a yearly average of 21 ; the marriages registered average 6 per annum. ; and the burials totalling 5,089 from 1587 to 1855 give a yearly death-rate of 19. In 1623 there are 31 burials, evidently pointing to an epidemic of some kind in that year. The burials
in 1665, the year of the Great Plague in London, were 11 (if all were registered); but increased to 19 in the following year, and we may suppose that some of these were plague victims.

From the registers we are able to compile with a fair amount of accuracy the names and periods of service of the incumbents of the parish; and we apppend the list. Gill Church having been a "Peculiar," i.e., exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop and Archdeacon, until recently a record of its clergy has not been preserved at York, where the records of most of the other parishes .of this Diocese are to be found :

CHURCHWARDENS' Accounts are another storehouse of interest and usefulness to those who seek to reconstruct the church history of the past. Unfortunately, none have been preserved for this parish of an earlier date than 1758, unless some undated ones may possibly be older. The first dated one which we have found is a lawyer's bill of that year, to the churchwardens as relieving officers. A copy of it is given.

7, 8 and 9 of January, 1758.
20th April [presented?]
Mr. John Cockshutt and Richard Ridihalgh as Officers of Barnoldswick-

Drawing a case touching the settlement of Hannah Stead otherwise Riley---and my other, trouble touching stating the case and fair copy) 6 8
Journey to Horsforth in order to make up the appeal
between Barnoldswick and Idle those
three Days out at 6s. 8d. per day. per day 1 0 0
My Expenses more than Mr. Cockshutt paid 2 0
Journey to Barnoldswick to take down the Examination
of many poor people and taking down the same filling
a whole sheet of paper on all sides. 6 8
Drawing a case relating to the Settlement of one Widow
Hargreaves and fair copy. 3 6
Paid postage thereof to Mr. Stanhope 6
Gave Mr. Stanhope therewith 10 6
His Clerk 2 6
Postage thereof from Mr. Stanhope 6
My trouble in sending the case to Mr. Stanhope and
other trouble relating thereto 1 8

2 14 6
8th July 1758 Reced the above contents in full for the use of my master and me.

Jno. HARTLEY Clerk to Mr. Barcroft.

Here is another, undated, referring to repairs at Gill Church :

6 yards of Inch Bords at 9d 4 6
Work at Cheeks and Dore 2 6
4 yards of Bords for vestery Dore 4 0
to work at the ffront of the Cobert that Is for making the
Dore and Cheks 2 6
9 yards of Bords for Inside of Cubert 6 9
To working the same 2 0
DO for Bare for Vestery Dore 0 9
1 3 0

A similar :

To Wm. Hargreaves for Deals 1-13-6 ½
for Church Dore 18-6 ½
for stones for steeple 1-11-6
A Sock 4-0
10lb. of nails 3-4
Carges to Otly 8-3
for oil & 1/- to Chris. Boothman 2-4
5-1-5 ½
And here are some of the "Church Expenses" for 1770:

Layd out of Church fds for 1770 recd of old officer*
Paid to Rogr Broughton 3-6
pd of Candles 0-7
Bread and Wine 4-6
Otley journey 9-4
Bread and Wine 4-6
Ringer 5 Novembr 1-0
Bread and Wine 4-6
3 Loads of Cole 3-6
pd of Candles 0-7
Lawce Anderson poyntg . 12-10
2-4-0
* In the original a line is drawn through the words ‘Recd of old officer’

The "old officer" (i.e., the retiring churchwarden for 1769) had evidently no balance to hand over, so the cancelled line is a tale of disappointed expectations. The candles were for the purpose of giving light to the choir, the rest of the congregation had to endure darkness. Church heating was not an expensive item in 1770. We are not informed of the purpose of the journey to Otley. It was not for the Archdeacon's Visitation, for at this period the incumbents of Gill "swore-in" the wardens themselves. Roger Broughton's receipted bill is attached to the accounts and included 1s. 0d. for "Drawing chimley pipe in vestrey." Lawrence Anderson's is also attached and is of sufficient interest to be copied here :

More repairs were required at Gill Church next year, as is seen by the following:

28 march 1771
Work done at Gill Church Steeple flore
Lying 18 yards at 3d per yard 4 6
for Ould Flore puling up and Doore hanging 2 6
item for 5lb. of Lead 0 10
Item for puling higher flore up and Lying Downe 3 0
Item for seting Lock on 0 6
11 4

It appears, however, that the statement of accounts given above did not cover the whole expenditure of the year 1770, for at the Visitation of April 22nd, 1771, the wardens submitted accounts amounting in all to £13 1s. 2d. The practice seems to have been that each of the four wardens was responsible for a section of the expenditure. In that year the wardens were John Greenwood, Francis Heaton, George Smith and John Wilkinson. George Smith handed in the bill already quoted. John Wilkinson had accounts amounting to £5 13s. 6d. John Greenwood and Francis Heaton each paid 1s. to "Ringers." The "Clerk" received £2 10s. and Chris. Boothman received 10s. 8d. for “ringing and sweeping." 5s. 6d. was paid for "Kindling the fire and an Almanack." The latter item, generally described as a "Sheet Almanack," occurs in other accounts of that period. It must, however, be admitted that a copy of "Old Moore's" Almanac for 1814 is one of the legacies of the past preserved in the parish safe to this day! It would be interesting to reproduce some of its pages here, but we fear they would hardly be germane to the History of Barnoldswick. We may, however, quote the following sentiment, part of the verse which prefaces the calendar for the month of June. It is appropriate in the days of disarmament proposals, and of heavy taxation :

“Let Peace at Home echo to Peace Abroad
That is the way to ease us of the Load
Of Taxes, under which our Shoulders bend
Let's study for Content, then Times will mend."

The wardens' expenses were defrayed by the proceeds of one or more Church "Sesses."(1) In 1770 two of these cesses were made and the amounts are given:

"2 Sesses" made in 1772 yielded £14 10s. 8 ½ d., and £7 seems to have been the average amount of a cess over the four townships. Collections were also made, but irregularly, and probably for special purposes. A list of the amounts received is given, but not of the objects to which they were applied.

1 Also called "assesses," and "church lays."

So, e.g., in 1766, collections were made :
On ye 20th of March 3 04
On June 1st 1 09
On December the 28th 2 03

These were all the collections made that year.
On Good Friday, 1767 2 07
On Whitsunday, 1767 2 00

Gill Church being as already stated “A Peculiar," a result of its old connection with the Monastery of Kirkstall, the churchwardens were not required to go to the trouble and expense of a journey to some distant place to attend an Archidiaconal Visitation. The incumbent, or " curate-in-charge," to give him his proper ecclesiastical title at that period, was allowed to swear them in himself, and received for so doing a fee of 6s. 8d. ; an arrangement, therefore, which seems to have been convenient and advantageous both to him and them; but has now been done away.

It would be tedious to my readers to peruse many more specimens of these old accounts, interesting though they are to antiquarians. 1 will, therefore, content myself with giving only one or two further items of this period, nearing the end of the 18th century. In the 1772 accounts we may be surprised and for a moment scandalized to read that 1s. 7d. was paid for "a pair of Bellies," until we realise that "bellies" means, of course, bellows for blowing up the church fire. In the same year one Mr. Winckley received £1 4s. 2d. for "searching the Augmentation Office," no doubt in order to discover whether the Living was receiving all the income due to it from Queen Anne's Bounty. In the next year a 'New surplus" (surplice) for the minister was needed, and was made at home, 6s. being paid for "making and buttons and thred." A "day work" cleaning the church (in 1766) involved the outlay of 2s. ; some modern vicars and wardens may wish it could be done for this now. The churchwardens were also dispensers of alms to the poor in the days when there was no "Poor Law," and the amounts given varied from 5s. to 1s. I have not found here the quaint items which I found in the wardens' accounts of another parish of which I was rector, e.g., for "bleeding" so-and-so (i.e., doctor's fees), or for 'Making a shift" for widow so-and-so.

CHAPTER XVI.

Visitations and Terriers.

IN SPITE of what has been said in the last chapter about Barnoldswick's exemption from "Visitations," this chapter will go to prove that its clergy and wardens did not wholly escape the necessity of having to give some account of their doings to higher authorities. The following, extracted from the Yorkshire Archaeological Society's Records, is a very interesting document of the middle of the 18th century :

Replies of the Vicar of Barnoldswick to Archbishop Herring's Visitation Questions, 1743:

Barnoldswick, Craven

I There may be two hundred familyes & many of them dissenters wholly, or some or more in a family. There are no Papists, but Quakers or Anabaptists commonly called. (Non bury in separate places except Quakers) one fourth nearly may be dissenters.

II. There is a meeting house (1) at Barnoldswick & another of the Quakers (2) at Salterforth in same parish. They of Barnoldswick refuse Infant Baptism and are called Baptists or by some Anabaptists & Antinomians & are very numerous. Their Teacher is one who dwells in the meeting house & they weekly assemble if not oftener except when he travells abroad.

III. There is a School at Barnoldswick maintained by the goodwill of the parishioners and public for all the parish. The Master teaches twenty or thirty children & is conformable(3) & & carefull to bring them duly to church.

This Vicar was Arthur Tempest, B.A. (Trin. Coll., Camb., 1683), of whose learning piety, and poverty Dr. Whitaker writes a glowing eulogy in his "History of Craven." He lived in a "thatched cabbin" which did duty as Vicarage for the combined parishes of Barnoldswick and Bracewell. “Under a mean garb his person was dignified and his deportment graceful. His charities were saved not only out of personal indulgence, but almost out of necessary accommodation. His doctrine as I have been assured by competent judges who had heard him was no less edifying than his life : on the whole whenever I enter his miserable cottage I can scarce forbear exclaiming with Grotius, ' Vide paupertatem tanti apostoli.` It was an age of the general decline of all religion, in the dark days before the breath of the Evangelical Revival swept over the Church of England, and we may be thankful that here a man so good and true was found to minister amongst the people. The "Replies" make interesting reading in many respects. "Two hundred families" would mean that the population then was about 1,000. The Baptists now have two churches in Barnoldswick, North Street Chapel (the present building was, I am informed, erected in 1797) [not so, North Street was built after the schism of the 1860s after its congregation had worshipped in other venues for many years. The 1797 build was the new chapel on Walmsgate], and Bethesda Chapel, opened in 1852. (2) The Quakers also continue in Salterforth in their homely little meeting-house. In view of the multitude of services which are held nowadays, we wonder how church people would like to be transported back to the days when one service only was held, and that only on alternate Sundays, and the Holy Communion celebrated only four times a year.

Statements relating to the material possessions of the Church had also to be submitted from time to time by the Vicar and wardens. These were known as "Terriers" from the Latin "terra"-land. There are various of these relating to Barnoldswick Parish, the first now extant being of the date 1748 and bearing the signature of Arthur Tempest, the Vicar referred to above. It is written on an odd scrap of parchment and is as follows:

1 Yorks. Arch. Soc's. Record Series, Vol. 71, pp. 76, 77 ; printed as edited by Canon S. L. Ollard and Rev. P C Walker.
2-On the site of an older building. [Not so. This was a new build on a greefield site. SCG]

"The Terrier belonging to the peculiar of Gill.

From the Tyths of Barnoldswick four pounds thirteen shillings x four pence yearly.

The yearly rent of Miln-close nine pounds. The tenement of wch. Miln-close consists of an house and Barn joyned to it.

Two ings and two meadows containing about eleven Acres joyning westward and northward on the close belonging to Mr. Danson Roundell & John Wilkinson, the former called Westfield, the other Brigge Holme. On the east separated by a brooke from the fields of William Bracewell.

On the south of Esquire Drake's grounds.

The miln-close is an augmentation from Royal Bounty.

Churchyard : valued four shillings yearly or thereabouts.

Smaller dues.

To Minister for churching sixpence, Clarke fourpence, for Weddings Minister one shilling and tenpence, Clarke a shilling, for burials Minister one shilling and fourpence Clarke one shilling."

This document is not witnessed, though a space is left for witnesses' signatures. It is as brief and concise as the next one, which is dated 1777 in the vicariate of Wilfrid Burton, is long and prolix.

In one of 1809, Edward Capstack being "curate," we are informed of an addition made to the possessions of the Benefice by the purchase of "a farm lying within Starbotton in the parish of Kettlewell," which had been bought with the "second Augmentation' of £200 given by Queen Ann’s Bounty. It contained a little over six acres. Its various fields and fences are set out in precise and full detail in the Terrier ; and it was, no doubt, a more profitable investment of the £200 than that yielding the small interest of £4 per annum which was all that Mr. Burton got. "Third and Fourth Augmentations" had been granted by Q.A.B., part of which had been used to redeem the Land Tax. The balance, £388, bore interest at the rate of £2 per cent. per annum.

The next one was made in 1825, to be handed to the Bishop of York at Skipton on August 3rd. Mordaunt Barnard was "Curate" then, the dates of his tenure of the Benefice being 1820 to 1840. This is the longest and fullest document of all, extending to six large sheets of parchment, and though the ink is faded it is fairly legible. The parish was still without a “Parsonage House.” Mill-close farm and house (the latter apparently occupied as a vicarage) still continue ; but a change had taken place about which more will be said in a later chapter, and which is referred to in the following extract from this terrier :

“The Farm [Mill-close] has a piece or Parcel of Land Inclosed from the Late Common Called White Moor by the Authority and Direction of the Commissioners of the Barnoldswick and Salterforth Enclosure Containing By admeasurement Ten Acres Three Roods and Thirty Perches Statute Measure Walled Round with a Stone Wall."

Further, the Archbishop is informed that "A Grant also was made of One Thousand Pounds for the Use of the Curate of Gill Church Otherwise Barnoldswick By the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty at Michelmas One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fourteen But the Interest thereof was not Claimed till Michelmas One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty which Interest Amounting to Two Hundred and Twenty Pounds was by the said Governors Directed to be Added to the Principal." Nor was this all, for we further read that in 1824 the sum of £100 was given by the Trustees of Pyncomb Charity in Somersetshire and another £100 by Sir John Lister-Kaye, Bart., then Patron of the Living ; and these donations were further increased by yet another £300 given by Q.A.B. as a "fifth and sixth Augmentation." The fees are still the same as in 1777, but the 6s. 8d. is gone, for in 1820 "The Churchwardens was [sic] Sworn into Office by the Archdeacon at a Visitation at Skipton and the fees Paid to him Accordingly." The pewter flagon and pewter paten mentioned in 1777 are still part of the "Church Furniture." Mention is also made of two large brass candlesticks, and we farther read

“There are Also The Ten Commandments Set upon the East End of the Church in the Inside thereof of a Large Size made of good Baltic Timber and well and Neatly Painted. Also the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. Set upon the North Side of the said Church. Also the King's Arms. Set upon the West Side of the said Church in the Inside thereof all made of good Baltic Timber of Proper Size and Materials made New and put up in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty Five”

The possessions of the church were augmented on the outside as well as on the "Inside," for "There is also a Building Erected for a Stable and Solely for the Use of and convenience of the Minister and Parishioners to Bind up Horses when coming to the Church.", This announcement is followed by a full description of the dimensions of the stable and the materials of which it was composed. Like the “Ten Commandments," the "racks" and "mangers" of this building were made of "good Baltic Timber." It was put up in 1824, "Partly by subscription and Partly at the Expense of the Parish." A full copy is also give of the “Inscription on the North Side of the Building,” but any of my readers who want to know what it is can go and read it for themselves.

"The Clerk's Wages are Per Annum Five Pounds Paid by the Churchwardens by Custom," in addition to various fees. "The Sexton's Wages which he Receives by Custom is one Shilling for every Burial," surely a very inadequate payment for the digging of a grave.

This terrier is signed by "Mordaunt Barnard Curate Incumbent," by three Churchwardens, namely, William Armistead, William Horabin Edmondson, And Thos. Edmondson; a blank space

1 The land for this was given loaned by Robt. Proctor, Esq., proprietor of Gill Hall Estate.

being left for the fourth name. It is witnessed by seven of the "Principal Inhabitants." A footnote of later date is appended : 'The following is to be inserted in future terriers : In the year 1832 the Revd. Mordaunt Barnard the Patron and also the Incumbent of the Church gave for the use of the congregation a good eight-day clock fixed in the front of the gallery which has his initials M.B. in gilt letters thereon, with the request that it may be kept in good repair, and that in renewing the painting and gilding of the dial-plate care may be taken that the said initials may be carefully renewed and preserved."

Alas ! for poor human desires of immortal fame, the "good eight-day clock" stands now ingloriously mute and the initials have almost entirely faded out on its tarnished face. Yet it, and they, are possible of renewal. (1)

Another addendum of interest is given in 1835 :

“We whose names are hereunto subscribed do hereby declare that ye following musical instruments and singing books belong to Gill Church. Namely: a violoncello, ye gift of ye Rev. Mordaunt Barnard, Patron and Incumbent. A viola, raised by a general subscription. N.B. There is a good box for ye preservation of ye violoncello. Printed book of Tunes by Rogers. A Written Do. Do. A small base and treble book for Tunes.

In the year 1836 the Diocese of Ripon was formed by division of the huge Diocese of York, and Charles Thomas Longley, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, became the first bishop of the new Diocese. In the next terrier, therefore, dated 1841, the Visitation, whilst still being held at Skipton, was conducted not by His Grace of York but by the Lord Bishop of Ripon. There is still no Parsonage House, but a further increase in the endowment of the Living is chronicled, viz., a "Parliamently Grant," neither the amount nor the date of which is specified, but which was sufficient to allow of the purchase of a farm called ‘Dudgeons’, situate within the parish of Thornton," and containing rather more than 62 acres and a house; and still to leave a sum of £1,760 13s. 6d. in the hands of Q.A.B., the yearly interest of which was £52 16s. 4d. ---The King's Arms" have been moved from the west end of the Church, and have been placed over the east window, where they still remain; probably because of the erection of the organ in the west end gallery in 1836. It is one of the mysteries of these terriers that no mention is made in any of them of the introduction of the organ, nor as to whether it was a gift

1 They have been renewed since

or bought by "public subscription" or how. I have been told by an old resident that it came from Burnley Parish Church in 1836, but the records of that Church also contain nothing about it. There is, however, in the 1841 terrier a note recording the making in 1836 of a 'Pew for the Use of the Churchwardens and Constable of the Parish for the time being," and a list of the names of these officers, which are inscribed on a brass plate affixed to the "Pew" and are still there for all men to read. There is a note about the choice of wardens : “There are four Wardens or Officers of the said Church out of which number the Incumbent has a right by custom to elect two and the remaining two is [sic] elected by the respective Townships for which they serve or by the Parishioners."

Some trouble had apparently arisen about this time over the question of the charging of double fees in Lent, for there is entered on the back of the last page of this terrier a statement that it is to be recorded in future terriers: "Resolved that the Double dues in Lent be abolished." No information is given as to the source of this resolution, but we may take it to have been the Easter Vestry. A later Vicar adds a note written just above this resolution : "The Parson’s double dues in Lent are not legally altered by below local arrangement, being Ecclesiastical fees ; such fees are only altered by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners acting with the consent of Vicar and Vestry and Bishop," and a formidable array of legal authorities is cited in favour of this contention. In 1877 there is a return almost to the terse brevity of Mr. Tempest's terrier of exactly 100 years before. An “Inventory of Moveable Goods in the Church of St. Mary-le-Gill” bearing that date is written on one side of a quarter sheet of paper (the previous ones are all on parchment). “The ancient pewter vessels" are included in this list, but there is no mention of the “large brass candlesticks.”

The following document may have more than a local interest:

SACRILEGE AT BARNOLDSWICK.

James Pilkington and William Scholefield, Charged with having on the 2nd day of November 1843, at Barnoldswick, broken into the Parish Church of St. Mary-le-Gill, and stolen therefrom a Pewter Plate, Who took their Trial at York Assizes on Friday the 22nd day of December, 1843, before Mr. justice Manic, when William Scholefield was sentenced to Transportation for 10 years, and James Pilkington 12 Months Imprisonment to hard Labour.

Bill of Indictment preferred by the Incumbent, the Revd. Richard
Milner, etc., etc.

Ten years' transportation (to Australia) seems an almost savagely severe sentence for the crime committed, but it is evidence of the horror with which sacrilege was regarded.

The "Ancient Pewter" Holy Communion vessels were still at the Vicarage in 1877. They have disappeared since then; and the present Church authorities of St. Mary-le-Gill would be very grateful to anyone who could help them to trace and recover them.

Mill Close Farm after its long connection with Gill Church was sold in 1920 to the Barnoldswick Urban District Council for £4,000, under the Glebe Lands Act, and the purchase money was invested in “Consolidated and Funding Stocks" by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners ; the interest on which now forms a chief part of the income of the Benefice. The allotment on White Moor was not included in this sale, and still remains as the only piece of glebe land now belonging to the parish. Starbotton and Dudgeons (alias Dodgson's) farms have also been sold, and the proceeds of the sales invested in India Stock.

The various grants from Queen Anne's Bounty may be rightly regarded as restitution made for the confiscation of the Tithes of the parish at the suppression of Kirkstall Monastery in the reign of Henry VIII. Queen Anne's conscience was more sensitive than that of her royal predecessors and she founded "the Bounty" as a way of making amends for what had been done in Henry's time.

CHAPTER XVII.

The Tithes of Barnoldswick.

No writer on the history of any part of Craven Dale can dispense with frequent reference to the classical work of the Reverend Doctor Whitaker, in which is contained not only an immense amount of history culled with much laborious research from many original sources, but also reflections and disquisitions which are always worth reading on a great variety of subjects. The following remarks on “Tithe” are extracted from amongst some other very interesting "observations," as he styles them, on that subject :

“I would ask whether at the foundation of parishes, and for many centuries after, it were possible to devise a method of supporting an incumbent equally wise and proper with that of a manse, glebe, and tithes. The Pastor was not to be a vagrant among his flock ; an house therefore was to be provided for him; he wanted the common necessaries of life (for it was held at that time [note the sly humour of this "dig" at his own age] that even spiritual men must cat and drink) and money there was none to purchase them. A moderate allotment, therefore, of land was also required. But the growth of grain, a process which demands much care and attention [this also is a delightful little "aside"] would have converted the incumbent, as it has been well and frequently urged of late, into an illiterate farmer. It was proper, therefore, that the glebe should be restricted within such limits as would suffice for the production of milk, butter, cheese, animal food, and such other articles as require little labour, while the bread-corn and other grain of the minister, should be supplied by the industry of his parishioners. And if the minister fed the people, as it was his office to do, with 'the bread that endureth' there was an harmony as well as equity in requiring that they should feed him in return with that 'which perisheth.' "

That there was no “proper manse," as Whitaker calls it, in which the "Pastor" might live and not be "a vagrant among his flock," we have seen by the terriers quoted in the last chapter, and in a later section of this book we shall record how one came to be provided. The last chapter also relates how the glebe land was eventually all converted into a form of subsistence even easier to manage than the animal farming which the learned historian considers so much simpler than grain-growing.

But what became of the Tithes after the dissolution of Kirkstall, and the final spoliation of its properties here, of which they remained one, no doubt, to the last? Amongst the documents formerly kept in the church safe at Gill Church and now deposited for safer custody in the Diocesan Registry at Bradford, there are three that help us to answer this question. The chief of them is a very fine MS. consisting of five pages of parchment, each measuring 32 inches by 26 inches, beautifully written and scaled, purporting to be an "Indenture Tripartite" made on the 12th of May 1807 -between the Right Hon. Robert Edward Lord Petre, Baron of Writtle in the County of Essex, of the first part; Thomas Cockshott of Bracewell in the County of York, gentleman, Richard Greenwood of Bank Newton in the parish of Gargrave in the said county of York, gentleman, Joshua Windle of Gargrave aforesaid, gentleman, Richard Hartley of Swinden in the parish of Gisburn in the said county of York, gentleman, Edmund Wilkinson of Salterforth in the parish of Barnoldswick in the said county of York, gentleman, and John Parr of Colne in the County Palatine of Lancaster, gentleman, of the second part ; Charles Philip Lord Stourton of Ollerton Park in the County of York, and Sir John Courtnay Throckmorton of Buckland in the County of Berks [? Baronet] of the third part." The Deed is written with all the verbosity which characterized lawyers of that period and some other periods ; and I forbear from transcribing it in full, or even quoting further extracts from it beyond the statement that "the said Robert Edward Lord Petre . . . doth grant bargain sell alien release and confirm unto the said Thomas Cockshott [and the others] ... All the Tithes both great and small and of what nature or kind soever of the said Robert Edward Lord Petre Arising growing renewing or coming or to arrive grow renew or come ... from or out of all every or any of the messuages cottages lands mills commons moors wastes Tenements or Hereditaments whatsoever within the parish of Barnoldswick otherwise Gill Kirk or Saint Michael le Gill. And also all the Tithe Barns .... or the Sites thereof with the Appurtenances to the same belonging ... And all the Moduses customary or prescriptive payments (if any there be) belonging to the said Rectory." There is, however, reserved “A yearly Stipend or sum of £4 13s. 4d. payable out of the said Tithes for ever to the Minister or Curate for the time being of the Rectory or Parish Church of Barnoldswick." (etc.).

The price for which the Tithes were sold was £2,827 2s. 8d. .'of lawful English money" ; and there is a statement that the purchasers had at their own expense redeemed the Land Tax.

The Tithes of Barnoldswick were, therefore, valuable; but they did not find their way to the provision of “bread corn" for the Minister who had, it seems, to be content to be "passing rich" on his little pittance of £4 13s. 4d. per annum. I do not know why this latter sum was exempt when the rest of the Tithes were alienated from their original purpose, unless it represented some original payment made not to the monastery of Kirkstall, but to the minister in his proper person.

This Deed is, however, of chief interest to the local historian by reason of its "Schedule," which enables us to trace the passage of the Tithes, and with them the Advowson of the Church, into the hands of Lord Petre. To begin with, Queen Elizabeth made a grant of them in 1578 to the Earl of Lincoln and one Christopher Gowsse, Gentleman. This Earl of Lincoln (perhaps he laid claim to them as a successor in that earldom to Henry de Lacy) whose name was Edward Clinton, alias Fiennes, was a man of note. He had been made Lord High Admiral of England by Henry VIII., and was created Earl in 1572. He did not retain the Tithes of Barnoldswick long, but sold them to two gentlemen named Thomas Crompton and John Motley, who in turn sold them to Thomas Walmsley, Serjeant-at-Law, and Edward Bradyll, Esq. The latter a few years later relinquished or sold his share to Serjeant Walmsley, who thus became sole owner of the tithes and advowson. The Walmsley family belonged to DunkenhaIgh, near Accrington, in Lancashire. They retained their interest in Barnoldswick, and no doubt exercised rights of patronage over Gill Church, until 1711, when Catherine, daughter of Bartholomew Walmsley, married, as her first husband, Robert, seventh Baron Petre. The union was, unfortunately, not a long one, for this hapless nobleman died of smallpox next year (1712) at the untimely age of 22, leaving his young widow who, as heiress of her brother Francis Walmsley, had received, amongst other possessions, the tithes of Barnoldswick. She married again in 1733 Charles, 14th Baron Stourton. She appears to have had a passion for making, and revoking, trusts and wills and codicils. When she died at a good old age in 1788 (according to other authorities 1785) she left her estates charged with a sum of £10,000 to be paid to the younger children of her late grand-daughter, Catherine Heneage. We feel we should like to know more of this wonderful old lady who had out-lived her grand-daughter, and who in her young days was the heroine of Pope's "Rape of the Lock." In order to help to pay the £10,000, together with interest accruing upon it making a total of over £12,000, the advowson and tithes of Gill Church were sold by her executors in 1807. The advowson was not sold with the tithes, but was made the subject of another Deed, also dated 12th May, 1807, by which Lord Petre sold to "Thomas Cockshott his heirs and assigns All that the Advowson donation and Right of Patronage and Presentation of and into the Rectory and Parish Church of Gill Kirk or St. Michael-le-Gill in the County of York whereof Edward Capstacks was then Rector or Incumbent with the Glebe lands, etc." No wife of Thomas Cockshott was to be dowable with the Advowson; and he was to take care when a vacancy occurred to present "some learned honest and well qualified clerk to succeed in and to the said Church as Rector or Parson."

We may enquire why Gill Kirk in these deeds is given the alternative title of St. Michael-le-Gill instead of St. Mary-le-Gill, by which name we have known it hitherto. It seems to be an example of the anti-Popery spirit of the times, and of the consequent desire to discourage the cult of the Virgin Mary.

Thomas Cockshott, by his will made 18th May, 1815, gave his sons, John and Thomas, and son-in-law, Michael Mason, power to sell the advowson ; and in July 1818 it was sold for £630 to John (afterwards Sir John) Lister-Kaye; from whom it was subsequently purchased by, or for, the Rev. Mordaunt Barnard, who in 1836 sold it to Mr. Richard Hudson. It became in turn the property of successive vicars, or their representatives, until in 1924 it was bought for the Bishop of Bradford, whose successors in the See now, therefore, are the Patrons.

The course of the tithes is, less easy to trace after their sale by Lord Petre. They were, apparently, sold in portions with the farms, etc., on which they were laid, to various purchasers ; so that Lewes' "Topographical Dictionary of England," 1835, is correct in stating that “the landowners are lay impropriators."

“Gylkyrk" in the “King's Books" is valued at £4 13s. 4d. per annum. In the “Parliamentary Survey" made in connection with Queen Anne's Bounty in order to ascertain the value of parishes and livings in the country, we find the following entry about Barnoldswick : “No minister. The impropriation is worth £50 per annum. Only £7 per annum, for maintenance. We recommend them [i.e., the parishioners] to the State, certifying thus much on their behalf that the said parish have always unanimously concurred to their great loss and damage in all good ways to promote the public service."(2) It is interesting and gratifying to local pride to find this high repute for public spirit in that period when the population and capacity of the parish were so much less than now.

The "Terriers" enumerated in a previous chapter convey information about the various "Augmentations" which increased the value of the Living, and which were £200 in 1731, £200 in 1771, 1200 in 1786, and again in 1794; £1000 from the Parliamentary Grant in 185, £300 and a further £300 in 1824 and 1826 from the same source; (300 from Sir John Lister-Kaye, and, £100 from the Pyncombe Trustees, £2,800 in all.

Whitaker says that "the certified value" of the Living was in his day £5 8s. 4d. (it is so given in Bacon's "Liber Regis," where the Patron is stated to be Edmund Starkie, Esq.), "but the actual endowment consists in an antient pension of fourteen nobles paid out of the great and small tithes ; a tenement valued at £12. ; the rent of the churchyard or 5s. ; £3. for preaching two sermons;

1 No doubt a rough statement of the £4 13. 4 and the £3 left by John Milner in 1718 to the "minister of Gill Church."
2 Vol. XVIII, p 215.

and one augmentation at least from Queen Anne's Bounty." The antient pension" is the £4 13s. 4d. already referred to more than once in the preceding pages.

In view of the present agitation in some parts of England on the subject of Tithes, it may be deemed fortunate for the vicars of Barnoldswick that their income is not now derived from that source ; and it may not be irrelevant to point out that the Church undoubtedly lost large revenues by royal, and other, robbery in the times of the Tudors ; and that tithes were bought and sold like any other property in the ordinary way of business. It is true that in the case of Barnoldswick and of several other parishes restitution, at least to some extent, was made by Queen Anne and by Parliament, but it should be remembered that it was restitution, not the endowment of the Church by the State.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The "Inclosure" Act.

IN the years 1829-1830 a very considerable change was made in the outward aspect and appearance of our township of Barnoldswick. This was brought about by the "inclosure" of the common and "waste" lands which from earliest ages had stretched unbroken by walls or fences round the town and up the side of Weets. It is true that each little "toft" or homestead had its “Croft" or small piece of tilled land, and that some sort of division, either a stone wall or a hedge, separated the corn-lands from the pastures. But the present patchwork, or irregular chess-board, of small fields did not exist, until the passing of the various Inclosure Acts in the early part of the last century brought them into being. The Act ordering the enclosure of the common lands of Barnoldswick was passed in 1814, but it was not until 1829 that the Award was made whereby the statutory surveyors or commissioners divided up these lands amongst the various owners whose names are recited therein. The Act is entitled "An Act for Inclosing Lands within the several Townships of Barnoldswick and Salterforth in the Parish of Barnoldswick in the West Riding of the County of York.” The Preamble recites that "there are within these Townships, in the Manor of Barnoldswick in the Parish of Barnoldswick. certain Tracts or Parcels of Commons, Moors, and Waste Grounds, called White Moor, and also divers other small Parcels of Common and Waste Lands within the said several Townships . . . containing in the whole by Estimation, One Thousand five Hundred Acres, or thereabouts." It continues : "And whereas Sir William Chambers Bagshaw, Knight, Edward Ferrand, Esquire, William Roundell, and William Atkinson Wasney, Clerks, Thomas Cockshott, John Parr, Richard Greenwood, and Edmund Wilkinson, Gentlemen, together with several other Owners and Proprietors of Estates, within the Parish of Barnoldswick aforesaid, are Lords of the Manor or reputed Manor of Barnoldswick aforesaid, and as such are entitled to the Royalties therein, and the Soil of the said Common and Waste Grounds," and goes on to state that it would be "of the greatest advantage" not only to these owners “but to the Public in general" that these Commons, etc., "should be divided, allotted and inclosed."

Thomas Buttle, of Kirkby Lonsdale in the County of Westmoreland, Gentleman," and his successors, to be appointed in Manner hereinafter mentioned," is [are] appointed the Sole Commissioner for dividing and allotting the said Commons, etc. Notice of "Sittings" of the Commissioner is to be given i(upon some Sunday, before or during Divine Service, by Writing, to be affixed upon the principal outer Door of the said Parish Church of Barnoldswick" ; also- by advertisement in the Leeds Mercury, or if that newspaper shall not be published, in some other newspaper usually and generally circulated in the County of York. "Sittings are to be held at Barnoldswick, or within the Distance of Eight Miles thereof."

Thomas Buttle, "or any other Commissioner who shall act in the Execution of this Act, shall be allowed the sum of Two Guineas and an Half, and no more, for his Trouble and Expences for each and every Day he shall necessarily attend . . . or be employed in travelling to or from the Places of Meeting." He is given power to settle disputes about claims but not “to determine the title to any Messuages, Lands, Tenements or Hereditaments whatsoever" ; also to assess costs. An appeal to the Assizes is allowed against any “Determination" of the Commissioner. He may also appoint surveyors or assistants, and order a “Survey, Admeasurement and Plan" to be made, and may "extinguish" or suspend rights of common. No Peat, Turf, Sods, Soil, Flags, Whins, or Furze may be cut, digged, pared, graved, flayed, or carried away, under penalty not exceeding Ten Pounds to be levied by Distress and Sale of the Goods and Chattels of any Person or Persons so offending," after the passing of the Act. Other powers are conferred upon the Commissioner: "He shall and may scour out, deepen, widen or divert all Brooks, Streams, Ditches, Watercourses, Watering Places, Tunnels and Bridges .... and also shall and may set out, order, and direct such new Ditches, Drains, Water-courses, Watering Places, Tunnels, Water-gates, Floodgates, Banks, and Bridges to be made of such Depth, Breadth and Extent and in such Situations and Directions" as he shall think proper ; with due “Satisfaction" and compensation for any damage thereby done; and he is to order and direct by whom, at whose expense, at what Time and what Manner the said Brooks et hoc genus omne shall be thereafter repaired, cleansed, scoured and maintained.

Similar powers are conferred for the diverting, turning, or stopping of Carriage, Bridle, and Foot Roads, and Highways ; but in this matter he must obtain the concurrence of two Justices of the Peace ; and his decisions are subject to appeal. Furthermore, he is to assign, set out, and allot unto the Surveyors of the Highways portions of ground for public “Quarries, Watering Places for Cattle, and for getting Stone and Gravel" for the repairs of the roads, and is to order by whom these roads are to be kept in repair. "Mosses" and "Turbary Grounds" are also to be set out for such as in times past have had them.

Such “Part and Parts of the said Commons and Waste Grounds as lie on the West Side of the old road leading from Gisburn to Colne," and various other lands, are to be set aside for sale by auction in order to defray the expenses of "obtaining and passing this Act," and of the survey and admeasurement, and all other “incidental Charges and Expences." If there be any surplus, “then such surplus Money shall be paid by the said Commissioner unto the several persons interested in the said Commons and Waste Grounds in such Shares and Proportions as he shall appoint ; and the Shares of such of them as shall be Tenants in Fee Simple shall be paid to them respectively, and the Shares of the others of the said Persons shall be paid into the Bank of England."

When all these provisions have been made, and all these things set in order, the “Residue" of the common land is to be divided amongst the several owners and proprietors in proportion to the annual value of their respective inclosed lands, such value to be “Ascertained by the Land-tax Assessment of the said respective Township for 1813”. The allotments so made are to be held as “Freehold of Inheritance."

It is further enacted "That nothing in this Act shall prejudice, lessen, defeat, or in anywise affect the Right, Title, or Interest of the Tithe-Owner or Owners for the time being respectively, in or to any Tithes, Moduses, Dues, Payments, Mortuaries, Easter Offerings, Surplice or other Fees." The "Curate for the time being" of the parish of Barnoldswick is exempted from the payment of any of the costs of the carrying out of the Act if the proceeds of the sale of lands should prove insufficient and a levy have to be made on the other owners, for
which levy provision is made.

Direction is given that the Award of the Commissioner shall be deposited, together with the maps and plans explanatory of the same, in the Public Register Office at Wakefield, and duplicates are to be lodged in the Parish Church of Barnoldswick with the Parish Registers. A fee of five shillings is to be charged for inspection of the original at Wakefield ; or one shilling may be charged for the perusal or inspection of each of "the Instruments" (i.e., Award, Maps, etc.), so inspected. Nothing is said as to the fees which may be charged for inspection of the copies.

In accordance with the Act, Mr. Commissioner Buttle took the necessary oath at Eshton Hall before Mathew Wilson, Esquire, on July 18th, 1814; and the first meetings were held on August 16th and September 13th of the same year at the house of John Clark, Innkeeper, in Barnoldswick ; and were continued as needed whilst the survey and allotment were carried out, until 1829, an inordinately long time, one would think, for the business.

In further accordance, a copy of the Commissioner's Award, duly signed, scaled and stamped, and so in fact a second original rather than a copy, is now preserved with the parish registers. It consists of 103 pages of parchment and three maps, and is well bound in calf and kept in a specially made tin box. The first part of the Award sets out the roads : Colne Road, Gisburn Road, Gillians Road, as Highways; Lister Well Road, Moor Gate Road, Parks Occupation Road, and several others as "Public Footways" or as “Bridle Paths," and as -Private Carriage Roads" ; and declares who are responsible for their maintenance and repair. Quarries and a watering-place are also arranged for as the Act required. No less than 70 parcels of land, large and small, containing in all 109 acres, in Barnoldswick township, were sold by auction to defray expenses at prices varying from £700 to 3s., the total proceeds of the sale being £1,567 1s. 6d. In addition, three acres in Salterforth were sold for £72 11s., in eighteen lots. The largest purchaser was one William Shaw, who bought 63 acres for £700; but Wm. Mitchell acquired 31 lots, all of them very small. Amongst the buyers was “The Barnoldswick Friendly Society," whose Treasurer and Stewards acquired eleven perches for the sum of £5 10s. Was it the site of their place of meeting? The Vicar of Bracewell, Rev. William Atkinson Wasney, also figures as the purchaser of three perches of land at a price of one guinea, apparently for his Church.

Having dealt with these matters the Commissioner proceeded to divide out the remaining land amongst the various landowners, in proportion to their respective holdings. It is interesting to note that Altham Chapel, Lancashire, receives 14½ acres, probably in satisfaction of some old tithe claim. Gill Church is allotted 11 acres. My readers may like to know who were the landowners of Barnoldswick a century ago, so I give the list of names as they stand in the Award. In addition to the two churches we have: Sir Wm. Bagshaw, Knight, John Barritt, Wm. Bracewell, Mary Brogden, John Broughton, John Croasdale's Representatives, Thomas Chippindale, Thomas Cockshott's Trustees, Henry Dean, Edward Ferrand, Abraham Greenwood, Richard Greenwood, Richard Hartley's co-heiresses, Mrs. Hoyle's Trustee, Christopher Hartley, Richard Jepson, Richard Kirk, John Mancknolls, Robert Midgley, William Mitchell, Ellis Nutter, John Oddie, Henry Hoyle Oddie, John Parr's Trustees, Jane Preston, Wm. Robertshaw, Richard Henry Roundell, Thomas Smith, John Stockdale, William Siddall, Thomas Taylor, Christopher Waite, Thomas Walshman, Rev. Wm. Atkinson Wasney, Edmund Wilkinson. John Parr’s Trustees are the largest owners, receiving 172, acres. R. H. Roundell comes next with just over 100. Detailed orders are given for the making and repair of fences on each allotment.

A special section and map of the Award deals with the drainage of “Salterforth Moss," and the making of a "Public Main Drain" to be known as "Salterforth and Kelbrook Main Watercourse." Another drain, to be called "Salterforth Moss Catch Water Drain" and two subsidiary ones named "Fleets Covered Drain " and “Salterforth Beck to the Carrs " are also directed to be made. Thomas Thornber, of Colne, Edmund Wilkinson, of Salterforth, and John Broughton, of Thornton, “and their successors to be appointed from time to time by the major part of the owners and proprietors of lands and grounds situate in Salterforth Bottoms, Hague, and Kelbrook Ings, who shall be present at a meeting to be held for the purpose in the Vestry of the Parish Church of Barnoldswick aforesaid at Eleven o'clock in the forenoon the first Monday in October in every year," are appointed to see to the maintenance and repair of the drains at a charge of £10, instructions for levying which on the various landowners are also given. “Salterforth Beck to the Carrs" drain, however, is put under the care of R. H. Roundell, of Gledstone Hall, and John Broughton, and their successors similarly appointed, who are to levy £5 for the purpose.

The Award is “signed, scaled and delivered being first duly stamped" in the presence of John Hartley, Solicitor, Settle, and Samuel Swire, Land-surveyor, Skipton, on the 9th of January, 1829.

It has seemed worth while to give at some length in this History an account of an event which must have been of considerable local interest. These "inclosures" of the common lands, which had lain unfenced through all the previous centuries from the days of the early Britons onwards, were being made by similar Acts of Parliament all over England at about this time. In consequence of the Barnoldswick Inclosure some twenty miles of stone walls were put on the side of Weets, no doubt a profitable business for the dry stone wall builders, whose craft is a decaying one to-day. The hill-side thus became “strapped over with large bandages of stone, and [now] presents nothing to the eye but right-lined and angular deformity" thus girds the historian of Craven at a change of which he was an eye-witness all over the Dale. Doubtless the change was necessary, but as he also remarks, it spoilt the beautiful park-like appearance of the country.

It appears to have been about the same time that the Guardians of our town sold the Village Green for building purposes. The Commercial Inn now stands where was once the Green, the scene in olden days of village dancing and perhaps of cock-fights and bull-baiting. There was no bridge in Barnoldswick then, and many a wetting was incurred in fording the beck which ran across the highway. It was bridged in 1830. [This is the culverting of the beck in Walmsgate. SCG]

CHAPTER XIX.

A Worthy and Noteworthy Vicar.

OF most of the Vicars of Barnoldswick parish whose names are given in a previous chapter little in the way of personal history is known. Chapter XVI. contains a brief note on Arthur Tempest, and various references have been made to Mordaunt Barnard. But the Rev. Richard Milner deserves more than a passing reference. He appears to have been a man of very considerable energy, ambitious of the welfare of his parish. He served as curate to Mr. Barnard from December, 1835, until April, 1840, when he succeeded him as Vicar or Perpetual Curate. But from his first appointment he was practically in entire charge of the parish, Mr. Barnard having retired, probably on account of ill-health, to Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, where he lived till 1840 or later. Immediately on coming here as minister, Mr. Milner took in hand the task of providing a new school for the town which might serve also as a chapel-of-ease, although the latter object was kept somewhat in the background at first. Prior to this a small day school had been carried on in a private house leased at a yearly rent of 10s. from William Armistead, of Aynhams, and described in an indenture of lease, dated October 6th, 1830, as “All that Messuage and Tenement formerly the ancient Schoolhouse called Barnoldswick School . . . now used and occupied partly as a Schoolhouse or Schoolroom partly as a Dwelling house." The exact locality of this building I have not been able to ascertain. The fact that the lease was due to expire in 1837 may have been one reason why Mr. Milner promptly set to work to get a new school built. But the accommodation in the old school was miserably inadequate, being only sufficient for 30 boys and 12 girls. There was a still smaller school in connection with the Baptist Church, with accommodation for 17 boys and three girls ; and these two little schools formed the whole educational provision for a town whose population had now grown to be about 3,000. The Church of England Sunday School was held in Gill Church "for want of better accommodation," as Mr. Milner says in his application for aid to the National Society. Those who remember how terribly bad until quite recently was the condition of Gill Lane, leading to Gill Church, as well as the distance, over a mile, of that church from the town, will appreciate the need of providing "better accommodation."

A public meeting was called on February 15th, 1836, "for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety and expediency of erecting a daily and Sunday School to be united to the National Society." The chair at this meeting was taken by the Rev. J. Rushton, Vicar of Newchurch-in-Pendle, who took a
considerable interest in the ecclesiastical concerns of this parish. The meeting passed the following resolution : “That it appears to this meeting desirable to erect a New School to serve the purpose of a Sunday and Daily School as well as an occasional Preaching Room" ; and a committee was appointed to endeavour to obtain subscriptions. It is puzzling, in view of the existence of the lease mentioned, to find that the meeting also appointed two gentlemen to make enquiries as to “the possibility of legally disposing of the present School and Schoolhouse in aid of funds." Perhaps Mr. Armistead, who was one of the chief supporters of the project for a new School and Preaching-Room, may have surrendered his lease to the Church. In any case, it seems that it was not sold, for no entry of its sale appears in the accounts of the building fund of the new school. Mr. Milner was appointed Secretary and Mr. Jas. Duckworth Treasurer to the Committee, and it was resolved to approach the National Society and the Lords of the Treasury for aid. The Committee was instructed to endeavour to secure a site "at the top of Blue Pot Lane, or as near thereto as possible, so as to accommodate the inhabitants of Salterforth and neighbourhood as well as Barnoldswick." A further resolution to the effect that "should not the Committee succeed in the accomplishment of their aim the expenses incurred shall be defrayed by the Constable of the Parish" is interesting reading and may excite the envy of modern promoters of such enterprises.

The efforts to secure a site in "Blue Pot Lane" did not meet with success, for at a later meeting it was resolved that Mr. Jas. Royds, of Mount Falinge, Rochdale, should be asked to give or sell a site. This application was crowned with success and Mr. Royds gave the site on which the present St. James’ Church stands. In a letter on the subject from his son the writer states that his father wishes a clause to be inserted in the Deed of gift to prevent its (i.e. the School) being used for any other purpose than the strict doctrines of our Church" ; but he does not, perhaps wisely, attempt to define these doctrines. One Mr. Wasney was authorized by the Committee to draw up documents “In every respect in strict conformity with this letter."

The National Society inclined a favourable car to the appeal from Barnoldswick, and made a first grant of £30, to which they added £50 later. They also forwarded a recommendation to H.M. Treasury that a grant of £200 should be given from that source. The Treasury gave £150. Meanwhile, subscriptions were being collected, and things appeared so favourable that at a meeting held on July 12th, 1836, Mr. Milner was authorized to get plans and specifications in readiness “with a view to commence the building immediately." They were "in readiness" by the 26th of the same month and at a meeting held on that date it was resolved that "the Letting (of the contracts) should be advertised to take place on August 9th." The stone for the hewn work was to be obtained from Low Delph, near Colne; the other stone from the local quarry on Tubber Hill. A copy of the bill advertising "the Letting," which it states is to be "By Ticket" is annexed to the Minutes. of this. Meeting and contractors are therein informed that the Committee will provide stone, lime, and sand. No letting was made however on August 9th, but at a subsequent meeting on October 3rd contracts were accepted from Thos. Smith for masonry (£120), Wm. Hall for carpentry (£69 10s. 0d.), Christopher Thornton for slating with blue slate (£12 16s. 10d.) and J. Watson for plumber's and glazier's work (£50). Even with the materials provided this seems an extraordinarily small sum, totalling only just over £250. It seems however, that the plans and specifications were afterwards considerably altered and enlarged, for the final cost of the building was £625. A gallery was added also, at an extra cost of over £200, and the provision of this gallery, or rather the method of paying for it, appears to have caused some friction between Mr. Milner and a section of the parishioners, by reason of which he resigned his position as secretary to the Committee, and there is a hiatus in the records of the meetings until 1838. The building, which was to be school and church in one, was finished in 1837, but was not opened until next year. Amongst those who subscribed to the Building Fund we find the Archbishop of York, who gave £10 ; the Bishop of Ripon, a like sum; Jas. Cockshott, £20; J. H. Bagshaw, £20; R. H. Roundell, £10. In addition to his gift of land, Mr. Royds gave £50. (1)

For a few years this building, dedicated to St. James’, was used as a school and to some extent as a place of worship. It consisted of one room only, with a partition (a curtain ?) between the boys and the girls, 300 of whom were received in it. They paid small weekly fees, "2 pence for weavers and labourers, 3 pence for others, and 4 pence for accountants." The master received £30 a year salary, and equipment cost some £15 annually.

In 1842 St. James' was consecrated as a church by the Lord Bishop of Ripon, Charles Thomas Longley. The document giving the "Arrangements" for the consecration is of considerable interest as showing how things of this sort were done in early Victorian days :

1 There is a tradition which I have been unable to confirm by any documentary evidence that Queen Victoria gave £10 for the Communion rails before the consecration of the church.

The BISHOP will drive to the gate of the Chapel Yard about a Quarter to Twelve am.

The CLERGY will walk in procession from the Vestry in their Surplices to meet his Lordship at the Gate of the Chapel Yard. After the Clergy the Gentlemen present will join the Procession. When his Lordship has got out of his carriage he will pass between the CLERGY, who will then stand on each side of the path. The CLERGY will follow the BISHOP to the Vestry, where his Lordship will receive the petition to consecrate the Chapel. Whilst the petition is being presented, the Congregation will be admitted to fill the pews, but not to occupy the Iles of the Chapel.

After the Petition has been presented, the BISHOP and the CLERGY will pass into the Chapel in the following order,

THE BISHOP. HIS CHAPLAINS.

THE INCUMBENT. THE PREACHER.

THE CLERGY,-Two and Two.

This Procession will pass up the south Ile, the BISHOP and CLERGY alternately repeating the 24th Psalm as is directed in the form of Service.

The BISHOP will take the Chair on the north side of the Altar; the Incumbent will go to the Desk; and the PREACHER to a seat near the Pulpit; and the CLERGY will take their seats in the Pews set apart for them.

The doors of the Chapel will then be opened, and the Congregation will be allowed to fill the Church, and the morning service will commence.

The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper will be administered.

The CLERGY and others attending the Consecration are earnestly entreated to pay attention to these directions.

Before this event took place Mr. Milner, now duly instituted as Vicar, had set himself to provide yet another school in order that St. James' might be used as a church only. The story of his efforts in this direction has not been written by any contemporary hand, but the school stood in The Butts. [The Pigeon Club. SCG] In a report to the Charity Commissioners made in 1894 it is recorded that “a school had been in existence (in Barnoldswick) 'from time immemorial' and had been managed by the minister and churchwardens" in which about 100 boys and about 30 girls were taught "the usual elementary subjects." "The school building consisted of two small rooms, one above the other, and a large porch." In 1860, upon the Managers applying to the Education Department for a building grant for the purpose of enlarging and repairing the school it was discovered that they had no legal title to the building ; and the Department ordered that it should be vested in the Official Trustee of Charity Lands. The school was also placed under the management of "the minister of the parish, his curate, and eight members of the Church of England," to be conducted as a Church School, but subject to a “conscience clause." The present C.E. School in York Street was built in 1883, and enlarged in 1894, and again in 1898.

Having this secured a Chapel-of-Ease and a Church School for his parish, Mr. Milner next set himself to obtain a Vicarage and so to remove the reproach which rested on the established Church in Barnoldswick that its minister was what Whitaker calls “a vagrant among his flock." An appeal was issued in 1846 which we here transcribe. (1).

“The Population of the Parish of Barnoldswick, comprising the Townships of Barnoldswick, Brogden, Coates and Salterforth, as taken A.D. 1841, was 2,833, extending over 6,040 acres, and consists of small farmers, inferior (2) shopkeepers, and handloom weavers. In the Village of Barnoldswick alone (Population about 1,800) 197 families, or nearly 1,000 individuals depend on hand-loom weaving for support. There is not one member of the Established Church in affluent circumstances in the Parish. Under the Divine Blessing we have been enabled to erect a Church and a Day and Sunday School in this very poor and populous Village, at a cost of £1,700, of which nearly three-fourths have been raised by voluntary contributions.

I and my Parishioners (3) have great cause to thank God for putting it into the hearts of his servants to contribute the means by which we have been enabled to defray the expenses incurred in the erection of these buildings. The Spiritual good they have been the instruments of effecting has been great, and I trust through God's blessing will be abundantly increased.

In order to secure the services of a resident Minister in this portion of the Lord's vineyard measures have been taken to commence the erection of a Parsonage House. A suitable Site has been provided for the House, Garden, &c., by the liberality of Clement Royds Esq., Mount Falinge, Rochdale.

The estimated cost of the Parsonage is £700. The slender resources of this poor Parish are exhausted ; in order, therefore, that we may be enabled to accomplish this desirable object, I beg leave most respectfully to solicit the aid of those whom God has blessed with the means, and with hearts friendly to such undertakings.

1 am aware that many appeals of this kind are now made to the friends of the Church, yet I am sure you can rarely be called upon to give your assistance to a poorer District.

Hoping that this most earnest appeal will not be made in vain, I am, your obedient Servant,

RICHARD MILNER, Incumbent."

With the Appeal there was issued a first list of subscriptions. The list is headed by H.M. the Queen Dowager (Queen Charlotte) who gave £10. The Archbishop of York gave £20, the Bishop of Ripon £10, Mr. Roundell £21, Mrs. Laurence, of Studley Park, £20, J. H. Ainsworth, Esq., £25. There are many Leeds subscribers, and others range from Hove [Sussex] Amport [Hants.]

1 The capitals have been left as they are in the original, but the somewhat peculiar punctuation has been modernized.
2 This does not, of course, mean anything derogatory, only that they were in a small way of business.
3Conmpare – “Ego et meus rex"!

and Surry (sic) to Newcastle-on-Tyne and even to Berwick, and from Bath and Stratford-on-Avon to Burton-on-Trent and Stockport. They include several M.P's. and various Lords and Ladies, so that Vicar Milner appears to have had a considerable circle of influential friends.

The Appeal concludes on this practical note :

“Please insert a Shilling into the Card and return it to the Rev. R. Milner . . . . Any much larger sum will be specially and thankfully acknowledged. Subscriptions will also be received at the Bank of Messrs. Alcocks, Birkbeck and Co., Skipton." Evidently there were no banks in Barnoldswick in 1846.

In this aim also Mr. Milner was successful, and the present Vicarage [Now the Masonic Lodge at the end of Vicarage Road. SCG] is another substantial evidence of his perseverance and energy. It should be added that whilst this appeal was proceeding, or rather shortly before its issue, he had also got a school built and opened in the hamlet of Salterforth.

The following letter is interesting both as an evidence of his care for the parish in another way and as a side-light on ecclesiastical matters of 100 years ago. It is dated March 21st, 1838 :

"Dear Sir, The completion and early expected opening of St. James’s, Barnoldswick, reminds me of the conversation you and I had on the subject of a title. I write to know whether the term of your probation at St. Bee's has expired or is about to expire at Midsummer, and if so whether you would be disposed to accept a title from me. I must tell you that I have it in contemplation to take a curate, and to have one service in the morning jointly at Barnoldswick, in the afternoon one at Gill and one at Salterforth, and at night one at Barnolds., making four services. You are aware that my church would not of itself afford a salary, and that any proceeds of pew rents at Barnolds. wd. be insufficient to maintain a curate. I wd. therefore beg to know at the same time upon how liberal terms you might be disposed to accept my cure. The interchange of services wd. be light & wd. not require the close application to study and sermonizing as wd. be the case under other circumstances : more especially as I should not object to alternate with you. If agreeable to you a separate district might be assigned to you for pastoral superintendence and visitation of the sick, say Brockden & that part of Barnolds. North of the Village, while I take Cotes, Salterforth & rest of Barnoldswick, or the reverse. As to residence you know the district as well as myself."

The name and address of the person to whom this letter is indited are not given on the copy preserved amongst other papers of Mr. Milner's from which I have taken the above.

The following also, written to Mr. Milner by Rev. J. Rushton, Vicar of Newchurch-in-Pendle, and dated 13th March, 1838, is similarly interesting as illustrating the attitude of the Church Societies to applicants for grants in those days, and for other incidental remarks in it :

“My Dear Sir, I am sorry you have had to send over purposely for an answer to your important enquiries of 28th ult. Your architect Anderton told me yesterday you had resigned your office of secy on account of some dispute as to the rent of pews in the gallery. I hope this is not the case. It wd. appear very selfish after collecting the principal part of the means from the landowners either to sell or to let them. Selling is out of the question, you can neither reasonably nor legally do it. Letting is both practicable and proper. Fix in committee the annual sums, or quarterage, to be paid for each ; then as a security to the tenant that he shall not be disturbed in future possession so long as he rents & occupies the pew, let the site be put up at a meeting for competition, and the money so raised appropriated as the committee direct. The rents may go towards the maintenance of an additional minister, or form a sinking fund for repairs, exps of school, &c., &c.

I presume from your plan of 'pewing the floor' that you intend to make it a place of worship only, not a school; if so where are your funds for improving the old school? What prospect have you of obtaining an assistant from local, or charitable, or private resources? Will Mr. Stockdale take the duty for nothing in consideration of a title? Or do you depend upon the Past. Aid Society or Additional curates' fund for salary? Of all these, and many other circumstances I am ignorant : so that without further information I could not say what the Past. Aid Socy might do in your case. I am not aware of more than two cases up to Dec. 1837 of aid voted for places of worship and these were small in amount, and in fact but loans. The latter in my presence was granted on the understanding that it shd. be repaid (£50) by instalments, and an annual collection made for the general purposes of the Socy. Their income at present does not allow them to build. The question for your consideration is whether you wd. prefer calling upon them for a temporary grant of say 100£, or applying for the salary of an assistant. I ventured to throw out a hint to Mr. Morris that you might possibly apply for an assistant, and if successful he might assist at one end of the day at his new church. The amount of your population (2,500 I presume) would not alone be large enough to make out a 'strong case.' I am comparatively ignorant of the most essential particulars as to population, distance from other churches, & what amount of population wd. be affected by opening a church or oratory at Salterforth or Kelbrook on the one side, or you taking Salterforth and Gill at Barnoldswick, Brockden, or Rimington on the other. I think you will be obliged to unite other districts, or raise a certain proportion of the salary from local resources to meet any grant they might make.

Could you meet me at Barrowford by 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon (it is moonlight at night) and bring with you the population tables of the West Riding which you may possibly borrow of Mr. Wasney, Mr. Morris, Mr. Roundell, or other friend, I cd. form a better judgement of the case. In your future communications you will save expense by sending them to the Fleece Inn, Barrowford, where I am sure to be some part of the week. I am sorry to have kept your man so long, this is a work day, paying off arrears of correspondence &c.

Believe me yours J. RUSHTON.

Can you find me a curate. Is there not a church building Socy at York or elsewhere ?

This letter proves that Mr. Rushton could be a candid as well as a helpful friend. There is another from him on the subject of the building of St. James's, which shows him in the same aspects and in which he lightens a rebuke by a touch of humour. I quote this one sentence : " Mr …… and I are of opinion you will not have funds for a spire and think it foolish in your aspiring so high."
Instead of the condemned spire he suggests a small octagonal turret on which a pole might be set “on which to hoist your flag on gala days!”

Another letter of Mr. Milner's affords us a glimpse both of local conditions in his days and also of the man himself. It is written to the Secretary of the National Society, and is dated March 21st, 1838 :

“Rev. Sir, The Committee of Barnoldswick School have directed me to make the following statement of their case and to beg you will lay it before your committee. The school to which the Treasury granted 150£ and your Society 30£ has been completed, at least as far as the erection, but in winding up their affairs [they] find that the sum allotted for fittings has been necessarily expended in the general accts., and in addition to this they have to build out-houses and yard-walls--& to pay expenses of conveyance &c. From the treasurer's acct. it appears that the committee's liabilities for these things are £118 9s. 6d., for which they see not how to provide. The present depressed state of the staple trade of the place (hand-loom weaving), the absence of proprietors and the very general application already made to our local and distant friends seem to preclude the hope of raising the above sum without foreign aid . . . . . I have great pleasure in reporting the favourable prospect shown of it being both generally acceptable and extensively useful to the District : that it will become the nursery of young for the church, yea the means of reclaiming many from the ranks of political dissenters and the preventative of a counter-scheme of some of our would-be styled ' liberals ' who condemn catechisms, expunge creeds, banish the bible & preach up ‘useful’ to the exclusion of other knowledge. I feel reluctant after all your liberality to urge for further aid but feel it due to the committee, to our important cause, & moreover to this prospect of extensive good to my parish, next to an additional church and fellow-labourer, to place the whole case in the hands of your committee”

In another similar letter, a copy of which has been preserved, but without date and without showing to what Society it is addressed, Mr. Milner again emphasises the depressed condition of hand-loom weaving, and the consequent poverty of his parishioners. In support of his application he gives an example of the spiritual fruits of his labours which is worthy of being more permanently recorded. He is referring to his church people and writes thus :

"Many of whom from being scholars have become, what too rarely occurs in these manufacturing. districts, diligent teachers of others. I may mention one most interesting case : a stonemason, 50 years of age, unable to read, began his alphabet, learnt to read, was baptised and confirmed, became a communicant and regularly attended church. In process of time he becomes a teacher, brings his family - 3 sons and 2 daughters to assist in the school, precedes them to the communion, and has not failed to do this for fifteen years morning and evening from a distance of 2 ½ miles every Sunday in all weathers, except during an illness of two months."

We may infer from the above that Mr. Milner did not neglect the spiritual side of his work because of his efforts to improve the material resources of the Church in the parish. Some local reader or readers may be able to identify the man to whom he refers. Mr. Milner probably means that the family attended Church, not Holy Communion, every Sunday, for there were then very few churches indeed, either in town or country, where the Celebrations were more frequent than once a month.

It was due to his success in these efforts to raise money that the Vicar obtained the reputation of being “The best beggar in the parish." He was made chairman of the local "Dole Committee in the days of the "Cotton Famine" (American Civil War) and was deputed to go to London to endeavour to obtain assistance from the Mansion House Fund which had been opened for the relief of sufferers in those terribly lean years. He came back with a considerable grant-in-aid and so once more justified his reputation ; and also proved his interest in the welfare of his people in their struggles to win daily bread. Another side of his character is shown by the fact that he was one of the Vice-presidents of the "Barlick Snuff-takers Fraternity," [see Atkinson; ‘Old Barlick’. SCG] and was a "three-dipper," using three fingers in helping himself to snuff.

In 1868 an organ was placed in St. James’s Church at a cost of £105. It was about this time that evening services began to take the place of the hitherto universal afternoon ones, much to the disgust of at least one churchwarden of Barnoldswick, who declared that the daylight was good enough to worship God by, if only people would use it, without wanting artificial light (gas was beginning to be introduced). Two years later, Mr. Milner passed to his rest at he age of 70 years, having been Vicar here for 30 years, and curate for four further years. He was undoubtedly one of the worthiest in the long line of incumbents of Barnoldswick.

CHAPTER XX

Barnoldswick in the Early XIX. Century.

WE have traced the story of the little town which nestles under the hills at the head of the Craven Valley, from its beginnings in the dim Saxon times, and have tried to gather some idea of what life within it was like at various periods of its development. Let us look now for a moment at the manner of life here in the early days of the Nineteenth Century, and bring our story to an end with a glance at the changes which came with the development of the cotton industry about the middle of that century.

For the facts given in this chapter we are very much indebted to the researches and memories, almost contemporary, of Mr. W. P. Atkinson, one of Barnoldswick's worthiest and most respected citizens of the last generation. Many still living remember him well, and his deep interest in everything that could advance the welfare, material and spiritual, of his fellow townsmen. Especially do some among them recall with gratitude the pilgrimages which he often made carrying, with the help of his son, a little baby-organ, to hold simple services in their own homes amongst the scattered farmers of this far-stretching parish. His reminiscences and collections, chatty and interesting, are contained in a MS. which his son lent for the compilation of this chapter, a loan which I here take the opportunity of gratefully acknowledging. [Old Barlick. Also on the site. SCG]

In 1801 the population of the town was 1,401. In 1841 it was 2,844, which had dropped again to 2,828 ten years later. In 1891 it was 4,808, and in 1901 it had leaped to 7,193. It is now nearly 12,000, and only for the interruption of the "cotton-boom" by the War it would have been twice as large. But the growth of the population has been much less remarkable than the growth which took place in other respects in that amazing century. The physical features of the town have changed. Reference has been made to the selling of the Village Green, which was the common rendezvous and playground of olden days. This was in 1816. The Commercial Inn, and about 20 back-to-back houses were erected upon it. It is an evidence of the force of old habit and tradition that to this day open-air meetings are commonly held on Jepp's Hill, which was part of the old Green. An orchard and cottages stood where now stand Orchard Street and Garden Street. "New Town," now one of the central streets, tells its own tale. The old stone stocks were removed when Orchard Street was built, and appear to have since perished altogether. Dam Head Bridge was in existence in 1796; how much earlier it is not known to the present writer. The following document may be of interest to some readers of this book.

“Know All Men by these presents that we, John Broughton of Thornton in the County of York and John Broughton of Moses Lee in the Parish of Barnoldswick and said County of York Stone Mason are held and firmly bound to Richard Parkinson of Calf Hall in the Parish of Barnoldswick and County of York aforesaid Surveyor of the Highways and his Successors in the Sum of Eighty Pounds of good and lawful Money of Great Britain to be paid to the said Richard Parkinson or his Successors or his or their Attorney, Executors, Administrators or Assigns, to which payment well and truly to be made we bind ourselves and each of us by himself for and in the whole, our Heirs [etc.]. Sealed with our Seals, Dated the Eighteenth day of July One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety Six.

The Condition of this obligation is such That if the above named John Broughtons or either of them [etc.] shall uphold maintain and keep in good and sufficient repair or cause to be upholden, maintained [etc.] for the Term of Seven Years from the Day of the Date hereof, a certain Stone Bridge commonly called or known by the Name of Damhead Bridge within the Township of Barnoldswick aforesaid Then this Obligation to be void, or otherwise to be and remain in full Force and Virtue."

On the other hand it was not until 1825 or 1830 that the beck between Westgate and Lamb Hill (as it was then called) was bridged ; and the ford, with its steep and awkward banks, done away with. A few years earlier a bridge had been made across Foul Syke, between Barnoldswick and Bracewell, and a ford and footbridge abolished. Until the coming of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal problems of transport, therefore, had been real and considerable. Coal especially was not easy to get, having to be brought ten or a dozen miles out of Lancashire over atrocious roads and dangerous fords. The Canal was begun in 1770 and opened for traffic in 1796, but work on it was not completed until 1816. It is said to have cost one million pounds to construct, a small sum compared with the cost, say, of the Manchester Ship Canal, but a large one for those days. Greenberfield, in this parish, where it is crossed by the old Roman road, is the highest point in its course ; the rise from Leeds being 410 feet, and from Liverpool 431 feet.

A railway line between Keighley and Skipton was opened in 1847, and two years later was extended to Colne. It was not until 1871 that the branch line from Earby to Barnoldswick was opened, a very great event in the local annals, and which brings us within the range of living memory. For twenty years the railway brought little or no profit to its promoters ; after that it paid fairly well. It was sold to the Midland Railway Company in 1899.

The improvement in the means of transport and of travel is certainly one of the greatest changes for the better that have taken place within the last century. Travelling little more than 100 years ago was difficult and dangerous, and many people never went further than Colne or Skipton. A journey to Manchester was as much of an enterprise as one to Paris, and one to London as adventurous as an air-trip to Constantinople is now. Handloom weaving was the chief, indeed almost the only, industry., The actual weaving was done by the elders, children assisted in bobbin-winding. The homes of the people were the workshops also, for the most part; there were a few small factories, the precursors of the vast modern mills. The largest, up to about the middle of the century, was Mr. J. Slater's, where fourteen looms were run, [loom shop on Manchester Road? SCG] one worker to each loom. Many inhabitants of Barnoldswick trudged all the way to Colne to bring home piece-work; and took it back in the same manner when finished. Mr. Slater employed a goodly number of home-workers, and kept several horses and lorries at work fetching raw materials and conveying away manufactured goods.

The homes of the dwellers in our town at that period were no doubt a great improvement on the mud hovels of Saxon times, and on the "tofts" of the days of the Tudors and Stuarts. But they left much to be desired. They were mostly back-to-back, giving no through ventilation, but affording opportunity for rats and other smaller vermin to migrate with ease. Chimneys had been introduced, and the chimney-sweep and his small boy, made familiar to us in the pages of “Water Babies,” were common sights in the streets. When the sweep was about the children used to chant a bit of doggerel beginning with

The floors of the houses were flagged and sanded ; stone steps or wooden ladders served as staircases to the upper rooms. The roofs were open to the slates ; and there were no ceilings to hide the joists and floor-boards. The handlooms, generally spoken of as "Pair of looms," were mostly found in the bedrooms, which were thus workrooms by day, and sleeping rooms by night. Some three-storey houses were erected in the town by the Oddfellows' Club in 1831 The sanitary accommodation was both utterly insufficient and to our modern ideas indecent. The windows were mostly of the casement type, with a single pane made to open, this affording all the ventilation which was deemed necessary. Electricity for lighting was, of course, still a thing of the distant future, though a lad of Yorkshire extraction named Michael Faraday was making the experiments which were to revolutionize life for a later generation. Gas was not found in the houses of the people ; candles and, later, oil lamps provided all the illumination which daylight did not give. There was no laid-on water supply, with its convenient taps ; all water had to be

1 There were three small spinning mills, driven by water power, namely Gillians Mill, Clough Mill and old Coates Mill.

fetched from well or pump or beck. Milk was, of course, very much cheaper than it is now, but it was not delivered from door to door. It had to be fetched from the farms, mostly in a contrivance known as a "back tin," which held, perhaps, a couple of gallons, and was, as its name implies, strapped on the back. It may be that this arrangement was no bad one for the lads and lasses who had to do the fetching. It was an excellent preventive of round shoulders, for to stoop when the tin was fastened on the back was to receive down the outside of one's neck what was intended to travel inside !

The beds of the humbler people consisted of a wooden frame, with cords stretched across both ways, and a mattress stuffed with chaff or straw.

House rents ranged from sixpence a week for single-roomed cottages to two shillings or more for more commodious dwellings. In 1851 the Foresters' Club built four houses in Mill Lane, which had back doors and quite a good piece of garden in front of each. These were let at half-a-crown a week.

Skimmed milk and porridge, better known as "stirabout" was the staple food. A little meal was put into the frying pan after the bacon had been cooked, and mixed with water. The "back-stone," or bakestone, was seen in almost every cottage home. This was a rough hearth made of a few bricks with a large piece of iron laid across them on which were baked the oat-cakes which no one dreamed of being without. There were, however, several public bakehouses, some of which such as "old Polly Slater's," “Betty Simpson's," and others are still remembered. To these the housewife took her "measures of meal," perhaps seven or ten pounds, and fetched the cakes home a day or two later, ready tar stringing them on the “bread fleak" to dry. Living was cheap on the whole. Eggs at a half-penny each, butter at about ninepence a pound, bacon and meat seldom over sixpence a pound for the best "cuts," candles fivepence to sixpence a pound, were average prices. Even so, meat was not often found in the homes of the poor. When they had any, other than bacon, it was nearly always boiled, very seldom roast. The broth was thickened with oat-cake or dumplings. Vegetables, of course, were home grown; I do not suppose you would find a greengrocer's shop in all Barnoldswick in those days of a century ago.

Clothing also was simpler and more enduring than it is today. Boys up to ten or twelve years of age had no vests, and required no "gallasses" (i.e. braces), the jacket going inside the trousers, which were fastened to it by four buttons.

The material used for such suits was invariably drab fustian, or corduroy. The only pockets were in the trousers, and were generally called "toa" (marbles) pockets ; but no doubt were the “omnium gatherums" which boy's pockets ever have been and ever shall be. The trousers legs stretched to the top of the clogs. Men did not wear overcoats, but instead thereof were clad in woollen plaids (or "plods"), which were very warm, and being in various colours and designs were picturesque withal. They were fastened across the chest with a double-ended hook of brass or iron, which usually bore the initials of the owner. A good cloth suit would last from ten to fifteen years, but then it was the "Sunday-best," and not worn o' weekdays. In Mr. Atkinson's reminiscences he tells of a neighbour "who was proud to be wearing his wedding coat twenty years after the event. The coat was dark blue and cut swallow tail, and was adorned with gilt buttons." As for ladies' apparel, I quote further from his MS.-"Old Berry Bever (or Veevers), the travelling milliner from Colne, was the principal caterer for the women's headgear (due being very few milliners' shops then in Barlick), and did a roaring trade. She and her assistants (in the season) came loaded here at least twice a week, and were great favourites with the working-class young women. Old Betty could supply her customers with a good serviceable bonnet, with ribbon strings to tie under the chin and all other trimmings complete, and guaranteed for twelve months, for the reasonable sum of six, seven, or eight shillings at the most . . . . . Women generally wore shawls both week-day and Sunday ; a special Paisley shawl made from thin material and of beautiful design which could be worn in different ways . . . . never went out of fashion. Elderly women preferred the long dark graceful cloak or mantle. Women's and men's, also children's, clothing was all home-made in the town . . . . The same may be said of the boots and shoes and clogs . . . . The clogs were not finished by the clogger, but had to be taken to the blacksmith for completion with iron or rings."

Wedding and funeral customs have altered considerably since the middle of the nineteenth century. Up to then (1850 or so) the recital of the "Nominy" poem seems to have been a regular feature of wedding ceremonies. This was a piece of doggerel, part of which is given by Mr. Atkinson as follows: (it was recited within the church by one of the school children)

"As many happy days I wish you still
As there are honeycombs on Hybal's hill,
I wish you never may deceased be
Till sheep and wolves accord in unity.
All earthly joys and heavenly bliss betide
This youthful bridegroom and this comely bride."

The wedding procession on its return from the church was generally headed by a fiddler who conducted the party to one of the public houses, where the evening was spent in conviviality and dancing.

The same narrator also tells of the funeral processions he witnessed in his youthful days, with “the singers" walking in front of the coffin, which was borne by hand, or on the shoulders of the bearers, over the long rough road from the town to Gill churchyard. A most strange custom, to our ways of thinking, was "the funeral collection" made in the house amongst the mourners assembled before the coffin was closed. Each person was supposed to contribute a shilling; and in this way the expenses of the funeral were defrayed. This was in the days before Insurance and Burial Clubs were founded. A slice of currant bread and a biscuit, folded in white paper sealed with black wax were handed to each mourner. The fashion of having funeral cards came into vogue about 1850, and displaced the currant loaf. The poetry on these cards expressed sentiments such as this

"We shall from Sodom flee when perfected in love
And haste to better company who wait for us above.

A collection of funeral cards was quite a common adornment of the walls of Barlick homes a half-century ago !

The holidays of the people were not so numerous then as now. Chief among them in "the 'fifties" of last century was the " Club Walk," on June 24th, which began with a religious service in Gill Church, and was continued with a dinner and much merry-making of a rather coarse sort.

Dancing round the Maypole on the village green did not die out until the early part of the century, and as late as 1846 the "Repeal of the Corn Laws" was celebrated with such a dance at Salterforth, and the festivities included the distribution of portions of a large currant loaf. There appears to have been a public holiday known as "The Rush-bearing" in the previous century, reminiscences of which continued until well into the nineteenth. This was, no doubt, the day on which in older times, the church floor was strewn with fresh new rushes.

Another "amusement," the punishment known as "riding the stang," meted out to scolding women, continued as late as 1855 in Barnoldswick. It has gone the same way as cock-fighting and bear-baiting and other cruel pastimes of an earlier age. To the crowd who watched it and indulged in coarse jeers and jests at the expense of the unhappy victim, it was a "pastime," as was confinement in the stocks, but we may be thankful that both the punishment and the pastime have disappeared.

The women of the town were wont to assemble at the "mangle houses," as the men did at the public houses, and much 'gossip' good and bad passed there; but the introduction of wringing machines was the death-blow to this old fashion.

The beginning of a new order of things so widely different from the old as to be nothing short of a revolution made itself manifest when for the first time "power looms" were introduced in cotton weaving. They had got as far as Colne by 1829, but did not come to Barnoldswick for another ten years or so. Their coming, and the building of the new vast “weaving sheds," which to-day dominate the town, sounded the death knell of the old hand-loom weaving in the homes of the people. During the middle of the nineteenth century the building of these sheds went forward apace. But it was in the latter years of the century that the cotton-boom began which transformed Barnoldswick from a quiet rural village into a manufacturing town. The population had increased from 2,800 in 1851 to over 7,000 in 1901, and another three or four thousand were added to it in the next ten years or so. Employers scoured not only Lancashire but far more distant parts of England and Wales to find operatives to work the looms. It seems strange to read this now when we are suffering from the reaction, and unemployment is rife in the town. Yet what has been may be again, and the prosperity which for a moment seems to be little more than a memory of the past may return once more perchance in some new and better way, as little dreamed of now as were the steam-engine and the power loom by the toiling men and women of a hundred years ago.

Before we conclude this chapter we may add a brief paragraph on some of the old place names which we find in the town. “The Butts" tells of the days when it was the meeting place of the bowmen, who assembled to test their skill at the targets, and the quality and workmanship of their bows, made perhaps of yew grown in Gill churchyard. "Walmsgate" (the gate by the spring or well) and "Westgate" remind us of the palisade which once stood round the "wick," with its gates opening on the pastures and "wastes" beyond. "Calf Hall" is probably a corruption of "Gafol" the name given to the land which belonged to the “villeins" in feudal times. " Hollins" was the place where the holly grew. "Gillions" is the "ing" or meadow in the "ghyll." “Pickles Hippings" the little up-ing lying on the hillside. “Foul Beck," or "Fools Syke," is neither the resort of half-witted folk nor yet a very dirty stream. It stands for Fula’s brook, carrying our minds back to ancient days when Fula, the Saxon, dwelt by it in his little hut. So, at least in the names which are daily on our lips, we bridge the centuries, and confess that we are the sons and heirs of those who in far bygone days lived and died in Barnoldswick. To alter slightly Thomas Carlyle's phrase, “The last Rear of the host can read traces of the earliest Van." Perhaps we may continue as he continues and conclude with his question and partial answer-"Whence ?-O Heaven whither ? Sense knows not; Faith knows not; only that it is through Mystery to Mystery, from God and to God

' We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep? "(1)

1 Sartor Resartus, Chap. VIII.

Transcribed by SCG/12 November 2005

Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!

Still reading through this article but a small point cropped up that I could do with a little help with.
Chapter 5 Ref Ghyll Church refers to a date stone 1 :-" The solid massive tower, of unusual width, was added later still in the days of Henry VIII., for it bears the date 1524 carved thus: "GCCCCXXIV." with the symbol M for 1,000 omitted, an omission of which Whitaker says that he has found no other example." " 2 :- "1. "History of Craven," p. 70. Possibly the M was accidentally cut off when the stone was being chiselled to fit in its place, and was not replaced on the neighbouring one.".
Accepting that the first letter of this Roman numeral sequence "G" should be a "C" to make up 500, I would still have thought that the letter "D" would have been used instead of 5xC. The date then reading 'MDXXIV' which would have presented ample room on the intended stone. It could have been a stonemason's typo but equally just a cock up that was discarded.
My real point of interest is "Does anyone know where on the Church this date stone is located? A good quality photo would be appreciated for my records.

I was certain I had done a pic of it but can't find it. During my rambles in the undergrowth I found an article I wrote in 2004 about the church which I can'r find posted o0n the site so I have put it in this morning....

Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!

Some time back it was suggested that the date stone 'CCCCXXIV was located on the south tower. Since then I've visited Ghyll Church again and found what I think is the stone. I say 'think' because the stone is approx 20ft up from ground level and is heavily weathered. My attempt at taking photos is a bit amateurish, (David, help needed,)

A general view with the date stone under the text on the next course down to the right.

P1050209A.jpg

An enlarged detail showing the markings but not with enough clarity to make anything out. Probably needs a sunnier day with it just at the right angle to throw a bit of shadow.

P1050207A.jpg

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.